


Hotel Valhalla's Weird Activities To The Death

by LifeOfRoos



Category: Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard - Rick Riordan, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/F, F/M, Hotel Valhalla, Humor, M/M, Strange things, To the Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:06:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 27
Words: 42,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24519679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LifeOfRoos/pseuds/LifeOfRoos
Summary: We all know of sword-fighting, spear-throwing, and yoga to the death. Yet, what other weird, totally peaceful activities have they managed to make dangerous in hotel Valhalla?
Relationships: Alex Fierro & Mallory Keen, Halfborn Gunderson/Mallory Keen, Magnus Chase & Halfborn Gunderson, Magnus Chase & Mallory Keen, Magnus Chase & Thomas Jefferson Jr., Magnus Chase/Alex Fierro, Mallory keen & Thomas Jefferson
Comments: 11
Kudos: 75





	1. Chapter 1

Magnus looked at Mallory, who was sitting on the bench in front of him. She was one place above him, and Magnus didn't like that. There were people who stated that Kahoot was a game. They were wrong. Kahoot was war. Magnus had already seen it in the years at middle school, before he started living on the streets. Kids would go crazy as soon as they realised somebody had kicked them down from their spot. Yet, this was still different. In this game, the thread of death wasn't just a joke. It was a reality.

Magnus selected the yellow block. The music changed, while the message: 'classroom superpowers?' Appeared on his tablet. He felt Alex' eyes in his back while he selected it. He looked around. Alex had his hand on his garotte. Magnus stared at his screen, praying to whatever god might be able to hear him. 'Please let it be right,' he thought. His screen lit up green; he was right. He cheered, before immediately ducking under his table. In the meantime, people started to attack everyone who had been wrong.

Magnus popped his head above the table again when the room became slightly more silent. The people who had been wrong had been thrown out of the room, and the game leader was presenting the next question: 'What flower was growing next to the trashcan in the third elevator in the year 1678 A.C. on the third day of may?' Magnus sighed deeply and thought deeply. He hadn't been dead yet at the time the flower had grown, helheim, he hadn't even been born!

Yet, he was the son of Frey. Magnus always took the third elevator, and he had once felt the presence of sunflower and Forget-me-nots pollen in there. Sadly, both of those things could be chosen. Magnus closed his eyes and pushed the button for Sunflowers. He stared at Mallory, who shot him a venomous look while she selected Forget-Me-Nots. The last person selected their answer, and Magnus screen went Green at the same moment Mallory's screen got red.

Magnus pulled Jack (in rune-form) from his belt. Te rune turned into a sword again, and Magnus jumped over his desk to attack Mallory. She slided under her desk, while Magnus landed upon it. She got up and tried to run to the other side of the room with her twin knives in her hands, but Magnus got up quicker and took a swing. Just before the sword hit Mallory's head, Jack flew up into the air. 'Magnus, you just woke me up and didn't even ask! I couldn't even sing a nice wake-up song! You can't possibly expect me to fight!' Mallory grinned evilly. 'Time to go back to your room, Flower Boy,' She said. Yet, before she could finish him off, Halfborn stabbed her from behind. Magnus sprinted back to the other side of the room, while Mallory was send back to her room on the nineteenth floor.

The next question was even harder to answer: 'What is Odin's left ravens' third favorite type of chocolate?' Magnus knew the birds' second favorite type of chocolate was Pure, but he didn't know the third one. He held his finger in front of the tablet, wondering whether it was Milk with almonds or Caramel-Sea Salt-bacon-cherries. Most humans would pick Milk with Almonds, but these weren't humans. Eventually, he picked Caramel-Sea Salt-Bacon-Cherries. Next to him, he saw that TJ selected Oranges-Cheese-Almonds.

Magnus was right again, and ducked under the table. He was not about to ask Jack to do something for him again. From under his table, he saw that Alex had had gotten out his Garotte, and she quickly ended TJ. Yet, Halfborn came barging in from the back, and stabbed Alex in his back. Alex tried to strangle Halfborn before he died and had to get reborn again. He succeeded, and it was then that Magnus was the last hope of his floor.

It was nerve-wracking. He answered two answers correctly, but the tension inside his body was only getting higher and higher. Floor 315, 245 and 68, with a lot of other floors Magnus didn't know about. Only floor 19, 67, 90 and 234 were still there, but there were people outside the door trying to get back into the race. Yet, Hotel Valhalla rules said that only people who were part of a team still in the race could come back into the room. Magnus hoped one of them would come walking back into the room again.

For some reason, people on the same floor would still keep trying to get each other. Kahoot To The Death was in Hotel Valhalla not only a way to show that your floor was the most honourable, but also that you were the most honourable of your floor. It is confusing for people who are not residents.

The next question was: 'What is the name of the sixth goat from the sixth day on the sixth month in the year 8 that was grazing in the third field of the fifth farm from the middle of Rome and the modern Amsterdam?' Magnus closed his eyes and just picked one. He peeked between his eyes, and saw the judging screen standing on his desk. It was pure red.

Magnus jumped up. 'JACK, PLEASE!' He screamed. Jack stopped singing Katy Perry, and flew back to Magnus. A girl from the 90th floor attacked Magnus, but couldn't get through Jack. Magnus sprinted through the room, trying to fight of people. Suddenly, he got stabbed in his right side by someone he didn't know. Just as he felt he was dying, he saw Mallory walk into the room. 'Mallory! Just in time! Defend our honour! He screamed, just before really dying. He had brought dishonour on himself and on his floor, and know all the hope was laid on someone else.


	2. Dodgeball To the Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of course, regular dodgeball is already a heel-twister. Yet, dodgeball in hotel Valhalla goes the extra mile.

Magnus wondered when Hotel Valhalla would stop making school activities into dangerous activities to the death. It either said something about how dangerous those activities were even in school, or it said something about the hotel making something innocent dangerous (Magnus personally thought it was the first thing).

Luckily, they didn't have to wear the manky clothes people in actual physical education classes had to wear. That was one good thing of this. Yet, in actual physical education, the dodgeballs weren't supposed to be deadly.

Magnus walked to the gym with the rest of his floor. They were all annoyed, accept for TJ; He was the one who had signed them all up for Dodgeball to the Death. He had been so excited that no-one had had the heart to say no, yet they did have the heart to whine about it endlessly. 'Dodgeball really is terrible,' Mallory muttered. TJ didn't even listen anymore. 'I mean, like, really, really, really terrible!' Mallory said a little bit louder. TJ shot her a dirty look. 'Like, really, Really, REALLY...' Halfborn slapped her against the back of the head. Mallory furiously turned around. The other three quickly ran forward, not wanting to get stuck in between the to lovers... 'Arguing.'

They walked into the gym and Magnus immediately got a ball in his face and disappeared. Alex and TJ immediately ran away as hard as possible. Alex dodged at least three balls while running about five metres, which was something that had never happened in the three years she had been in school. Also, at most gym classes there hadn't been matts, ropes and whatever else is in most gymnastik classes. 

Alex ducked behind a mat, which was leaning against a wall. She peeked at the room from behind the mat, and looked around. There were at least twenty balls flying around. Alex snickered. This was going to be amazing. She changed into a fly, and flew to the ceiling. She walked over the ceiling, until she hung above some though looking girl, with a scar on her neck. She laughed in herself as a ball came flying her way. She changed back into a human and caught the ball out of the air. Alex let out a warcry as she threw the ball straight into the girls' face. The strange girl screamed as she was disappearing. Alex laughed maniacally, while changing into a fly again.

Mallory and Halfborn had reached the room, only to immediately attack each other as soon as one of them caught a dodgeball. Mallory threw hers at Halfborn at a normal speed, but her boyfriend threw another ball back with so much strength that it pulverised a climbing frame. Mallory pulled a ball out of some poor other Einherjars' hands, and threw it at Halfborn. The ball caught so much speed that two other people got hit by it, and it still flew further. After that, Mallory decided that now would be a good time to run away from where she was standing as quick as possible.

TJ had wanted to play dodgeball because he didn't know what it was. He knew that most things in Hotel Valhalla were made deadlier than they were in Midgard, but this was ridiculous. He thought it would be fun, but now he was thinking about getting hit by a dodgeball so he could get out. It turned out that wasn't necessary, because some dude threw a ball at him, while jumping down from a rope he had climbed in.

Alex had send about seven people back to their room before somebody noticed what she was doing. Mallory realised that every time someone got hit in the back by a dodgeball by seemingly nobody, the sound of a fly could be heard. She put two and two together, and realised that the stricker was Alex. So, she started looking around for a fly, or other small insect.

After ten minutes of dodging flying things (People had decided that just throwing balls was boring, and they had started throwing their shoes, whatever was in their pockets, illegally snuck in weapons, other people and everything else you can throw), she saw a fly on a mat. Mallory didn't now if it was Alex, but decided to take a gamble anyway. She got her foot out of her pink shoe, held it in the air like a hot-pink weapon, ready to strike, and just when her arm was going down again, she felt something hit her hard in the back. She fell against the mat, of which a small fly quickly flew away. Mallory could have sworn it laughed at her, but maybe that was just because she was dying.

Halfborn laughed. He had gotten her. He decided to throw yet another ball at someone to celebrate his victory, but that celebration had to be cancelled, because Alex got out of her form as a fly and hit him in the head with a flying football (Nobody had an idea where it came from, yet there was also no-one who really cared about it). Alex laughed like crazy while she tried to turn back into a fly. All of her floormates were down, it was just her! She had won the great dodgeball match! That shows those weird canaries!

Just after she thought that, Alex wished she hadn't, because instead of turning into a small, flying bug, she turned into a neon-yellow canary. Canary-Alex zoomed to the ceiling as fast as possible, hoping that no-one had noticed her. Yet, the norns are just not that nice sometimes, and had clearly decided that some agender person was going to hit Alex on her canary-head that day. The eighteen-something looking person threw a dodgeball exactly at Alex' Very visible yellow tummy. But, of course, this was hotel Valhalla dodgeball, and there it hit Canary-Alex so hard that she got thrown against the wall. She squawked, but no-one could hear her. Canary-Alex fell to the floor, a dishonourable... 'Death,' as she saw that the ruthless game of dodgeball continued. She decided that, next time, they would all go to Kahoot or Yoga to the death; it was a lot more fun that Dodgeball.


	3. Ding-dong ditching to the Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Magnus and Alex find out that Hotel Valhalla has it's fair share of crazy ladies.

Okay, this is just a stupid thing to do, Magnus thought. Playing dodgeball, or Kahoot, is still some kind of fun. But going ding-dong ditching through a hotel with bloodthirsty warriors? That is just a stupid thing to do. Alex was walking next to him, with a sinister smile on his face. 'Magnus, don't you think this is great?'

Magnus gave her a weird look. 'Sure, great.' Alex rolled his eyes, while they stepped into an elevator. 'Let's go to the... erm...' Alex looked at the hundreds of buttons. He shrugged, closed his eyes, and pressed a random button. Magnus let out a yelp. 'Alex, that is floor number five hundred sixteen! You now, the people who we beat into the dirt during the pie-eating contest to the death yesterday!' An even wider grin grew on Alex face. 'Good.'

They got out of the elevator. Magnus kept hanging around there longer than was necessary, but Alex immediately tiptoed to the last door in the hallway. Magnus almost screamed. 'Alex! That is Rock Stonewalls room!' In response, Alex raised his finger and rang the doorbell in slow-motion. The moment Magnus decided to ran over to Alex and pull him back into the elevator, Rock opened the door. He stared at Alex and Magnus. 'What do you twerps want?' he asked.

Alex shrugged, and ran away so fast Magnus thought it was impossible. He took off after her, but Rock put his huge biceps in front of his face. 'You're not getting away, little dude.' Magnus tried to pull Jack from his necklace, but Rock forced his arm against Magnus neck, so that he couldn't reach the necklace. 'Prepare to die, brat,' Rock whispered in his ear.

Luckily, that was the moment the pressure of Rock's biceps got to much for Jack, and he transformed himself into a sword. 'Magnus, what do you think you're doing? Fitness probably isn't good for your way to skinny body...' Jack stopped talking when he saw Rock. Rock stared at the flying sword with a weird expression.

Jack would have rolled his eyes if he had them. 'Not a bright one, is he, Magnus?' He said. Rock opened his mouth to say something back, but Jack was quicker and cut of his arm. Rock screamed, and let go of Magnus (Obviously). Magnus grabbed Jack's hilt and sprinted to the elevator, where Alex was waiting. Alex had an relaxed expression on his face. Magnus slammed a random button, and smashed the button that closed the elevator door. Just before it really closed, Magnus saw a girl he thought was called Sandra Muscletown come out of her room, with a furious expression.

Magnus turned to Alex. 'Sandra saw us.' Alex looked at him. 'Let her. We are going to another floor, and she doesn't now which.' Magnus didn't calm down, though.

'Say, Magnus, do you now which button you pressed?' Alex asked after fifteen minutes. Magnus shook his head. 'No.' He stared at the numberdisplay. 'We are on floor 2003, by the way.' Alex opened her mouth, but than the elevator dinged and the doors went open. Alex and Magnus stepped out of the elevator. 'Where are we?'

'Floor 2005,' Magnus answered, 'Who even live there?' Alex looked around. 'I don't know either, but it smells like a retirement home. And prune juice.' Magnus nodded. Alex shrugged. 'Well, only one way to find out.' She pressed the closest doorbell, and jumped behind a chair that was standing in the hallway. Magnus sat down next to her.

After five minutes of waiting, Alex laid her head on his shoulder. Magnus put his arm around her waist. 'Maybe this person is just... playing baseball, or something?' He mumbled. Yet, at that moment the door opened. A really old woman with a wooden leg opened the door. She looked around the room for a while. 'Where are you, scum?' She screeched. She waved her arm around. Neither Alex or Magnus dared to say anything.

An old man stepped out of his room as well. 'Maxine, why are screaming again? There is nobody here!' Maxime looked at him with fire in her eyes. 'Shut your trap, Pete! Someone rang my doorbell!' The man's face got purple, and that was the moment Alex and Magnus decided to run away. Maxine yelled something at them, but Alex and Magnus didn't pay attention. Alex pushed the button for floor seven hundred seventy eight.

The trip down was twelve minutes. 'Say, Alex, what if we stop after this? Because otherwise Yoga To The Death will get incredibly heated next time around.' Alex nodded unwillingly. 'Yeah, maybe it is a smart idea. It is five PM, and someone is going to hit us. Reappearing in our rooms is going to take at least six hours and I don't feel like skipping dinner today.' The elevator let out a soft 'ding,' and the doors glided open.

Magnus ran up to a door and rang the bell. The door flew open and hit him in the face, causing him to fall on the floor. Magnus blinked. 'Why?' He looked at the face of the person who threw open the door. The person stared at him. 'Were you ding-dong ditching?' Magnus shook his head. The Person shook his head (Their name is Madison, ran through Magnus head). 'You're lying. My advice is to stop now. I tried ding-dong ditching in this hotel once. The things I saw... The things that happened...' Madison got a funny look in their eyes. 'Stop it.'

Magnus nodded, and as soon as Madison had closed the door he sprinted back to the lift. 'Let's go back to floor seventeen,' he whispered to Alex. She nodded. 'Sure.'

The lift stopped on the right floor, Alex and Magnus stepped out, and they saw a crime scene. Rock Stonewall was manically laughing and walking around with his sword. Maxine was standing in the middle of the hallway. She looked like she had just lost Bingo to the death, or like two children had just rang her doorbell only to run away.

Alex growled and attacked Rock. 'Why do you reappear so fast!?' She screamed, while pushing her garotte against Rock's throat. She didn't give Rock the time to answer. Maxine quickly shuffled back into the lift. Magnus let her go. He didn't really care. The lift closed again, and Alex started running around with wooden planks. 'Help me, Magnus! We need to barricade this!' Magnus looked at her. 'What about dinner?' Alex shook her head, annoyed. 'Not important.' Magnus sighed and helped her with the planks. 'Alright then.'


	4. Spanish Class To The Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone who has tried to learn a language on their own has stumbled across the great, green owl. Now, would he not fit perfectly into hotel Valhalla?

Magnus took a deep breath. Okay, he thought, it is just a language class. Nothing can go wrong. It is going to be fine. But deep inside he knew that it wasn't going to be fine. This was hotel Valhalla. Somebody would attack someone, and that would cause a chain reaction. After that first attack, more people would grab their weapons.

He slid into his desk on the third row. Alex sat next to him, Mallory in front of them. T.J. and Halfborn had decided that Spanish class was boring, and so they were currently doing extra Sword Training To The Death (Magnus personally thought that was the most boring class in hotel Valhalla, but alas).

When it was time for class to start, a bell rang. Magnus rolled his eyes. 'It is just like an actual school,' he whispered to Alex. His significant other chuckled. 'Let's hope Halfborn and T.J. aren't right with their 'But it is so boring!' lecture this morning, then. Magnus nodded. 'Yeah, and I hope...' He was cut of by some old lady which had wandered into the room. 'Mister Chase, el silencio!' She said. Somehow, Magnus realised that it meant that he needed to be quiet.

The old lady wrote on the white bored (Sorry, there I go again!) that her name was Mrs. García. At least, Magnus thought that was her name. He truly couldn't keep up with the waterfall of Spanish words that came out of her mouth. He looked at Alex. 'Do you understand what is being said?' Alex nodded. 'Of course. Why wouldn't I?' Magnus didn't know if she was joking or not, like so often with Alex.

The teacher clapped in her hands, and started to speak in English: 'So, today we'll have an extra teacher!' She clapped in her hands again, and looked at the door. 'You can come in!' She called. They heard footsteps, and the entire room started shaking. The steps got so loud, that Magnus started suspecting that Mrs. Gracía got a tyrannosaurus rex to help with Spanish. The door cracked open, and not a t-rex, but the Duolingo owl came into the room.

A girl screamed, and ducked under her table. The owl stomped to the front of the room, where mrs. García was standing. She had a weird grin on her face. Magnus didn't like that grin. He looked at Alex. His mouth hung wide open. He tapped Magnus' shoulder. 'It's the Duolingo owl. Magnus, it'll eat us!' Magnus instantly believed him. The green owl didn't look like he was going to give them all candy.

Mrs. García continued in Spanish, while the nerves where still flying through everyone's bodies. Yet, they all calmed down after ten minutes. And after twenty minutes, the huge green owl had been forgotten, and the lesson was just plain boring. So boring, even, that Alex laid his head on Magnus' shoulder and fell asleep. Magnus' eyelids started to feel heavy as well.

But then, one boy sunk to the ground and stayed there. Mrs. García stopped talking. The friend of the boy, who had been sitting next to him, got out of his chair to see if everything was alright. Well, it wasn't, because the boys body disappeared. His friend started screaming. 'He died of boredom!' He cried. Mrs. García's mouth turned into a small line. She opened it to say something, but was abruptly interrupted by the Duo, who attacked the kid who had yelled it. Within seconds, the kid was gone, swallowed by the big, green owl.

Magnus was immediately awake again, and pinched Alex to wake him up as well. Alex tried to say something, but Magnus put his hand over Alex' mouth and used the ASL-sign for swallowing. Alex understood, and turned his attention to the whiteboard. Mrs. García tried to say something, but she was stopped by her... 'colleague teacher' (and by stopped I mean that the owl put his huge wing over her mouth).

The owl pointed at some random, poor child. 'You. How do you say 'the man has a pear' in Spanish?' The boy looked incredibly afraid. 'I... I don't know, sir,' he said. Magnus swallowed a lump in his throat. 'That kid is done for,' he signed to Alex. Alex nodded, almost invisibly. The owl got a furious look in her eyes. 'I am a lady owl, just so you know!' She bellowed, before picking up the boy with her beak. 'Now beg for forgiveness in Spanish!' The boy wailed. 'S-salva mi-mi Vida, por favor!' (Save my life, please!) He managed to say. The duolingo owl dropped him back in his chair. 'Bueno.' (Good).

Then, Mrs. Gracía sunk to the ground. Her face was purple, and she disappeared. The duolingo owl gasped. After that, he shrugged. 'Well, I guess I held my wing in front of her nose too. Well, she'll come back. But it'll take a while, she lives on the fourteen hundredth floor, room 3, next to mister Manterra en Empress Sissi!' The owl grinned. 'So I'll be in charge for a little while!'

It was then that Magnus feared for his life more than he had ever done during Kahoot. The duolingo owl would let them repeat sentences, but sometimes he pointed at some poor soul and demanded that they would translate something from English to Spanish. Nine times out of ten, that person would stammer something as response. The duolingo owl would either make them beg in Spanish, or just immediately throw them out of the window or swallow them. There seemed to be absolutely no way to tell what she would do.

'Ms. Mallory Keen! Translate 'I am stupid because I have red hair' for me!' The owl screamed at Mallory. Mallory's face turned as red as her hair. She pulled out her twin knives, and jumped onto her desk. '¡Cállate, búho de gran tamaño!' (Shut up, big owl!) she screamed. The owl came towards her. Mallory held up her knives, ready to strike, but she stood no chance against the giant green owl. He swallowed her whole. Mallory's twin knives dropped on the floor.

Magnus looked around. There were only five (terrified) teenagers left. He looked at Alex. 'Say, Alex, what do you think of some nice revenge?' He asked. Alex smiled. 'Buena Idea.' (Good idea). He got out his garotte. Magnus pulled Jack from his necklace. 'Hey, Jack, we gotta fight against a dangerous owl!' Jack immediately turned into a sword. 'Let's fight, Beantown!' He yelled.

The owl turned around just a little to late. Magnus sword hacked into his back. The owl screamed a few Spanish words that I truly can't translate or even write down in Spanish, and turned around so violently that Magnus flew out of the window. He let go of Jack's hilt while falling down. He assumed Alex was either swallowed, or he had run away, and he was hoping it was the last one. While he was falling to his doom, he decided that maybe he shouldn't go to the German or Japanese classes next thursday.


	5. Painting class to the death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After all that has happened, it is not weird that Magnus does not believe in peace anymore. Can a painting restore his faith?

Magnus didn't even know what to do anymore. Almost all of the classes turned into a massacre, and today he really just wanted a relaxed day, without dying (Oh, and he also made a bet with Mallory that he could stay alive for an entire day, while still doing an activity). Halfborn had asked him if he wanted to take the painting class with him, and Magnus had decided that he might has well. He could think of at least ten ways to die during a painting class, but the other classes sounded just as deadly, so it didn't matter (I mean, Sword-training, Cannon-shooting and the book club are, like, six times more deadly than painting class, am I right?).

They arrived one minute early, and the teacher wasn't there yet. They picked out an easel. Magnus was happy that the paint was already there. For some reason, he had the extremely disturbing and terrible sight of having to make it from the enemies blood.

After about three minutes, Mrs. García came into the room. Magnus swallowed a lump in his throat, while he got a disturbing image of the Duolingo owl teaching them how to paint. Mrs garcía had a smile on her face, and said: 'Well, class, today someone from Freya's region will come here to teach you how to paint! And don't worry, it isn't Duo!' magnus heard multiple people let out a sigh. He heard a polite knock on the door. 'Come in!' Mrs. García said. Magnus turned to the door - he felt afraid. Yet, all those fearful feelings immediately disappeared when he realised that the person who had stepped into the room was none other than Bob Ross.

A few people gasped. One girl squeeked. Magnus felt a wave of relief coming over him. Bob Ross never seemed like the person to get super violent when the colours weren't mixed correctly, like a certain other art teacher Magnus rather wouldn't think about. In fact, Bob would probably find it funny. The teacher took the place of Mrs. García, who walked away, and stared at the classroom.

'Do I get my own easel, or not?' He asked. Some girl gestured at the easel next to her. He smiled at her, and took his place next to her. 'So, start by painting what you want!' He announced. Magnus stared at his empty canvas. He decided he would make an illustration for a book he just read (The first part of the Hunger Games. He had no idea why he didn't read it earlier). He grabbed the red and orange paint, picked up a brush and started working on it.

It was so relaxed, Magnus felt like he was back on earth, in a regular painting class, without his sword hanging around his neck. He could just paint his scene of devastation without being stabbed in the back. Every now and then, Bob would give someone advice, and nobody even got angry. That really never happened; usually, when anybody dared to get close to the work of an einherjar they would get mad.

Yet, peacetime will be broken one way or another. When one girl from the 6th floor tried to tell the guy next to her that his painting might be better if he did something differently, he grabbed her canvas and smacked her over the head with it. She fell to the floor, dizzy and confused. The students wanted to continue with their work, but Bob screamed and ran over to the girl. 'Why did you do that?' He asked the guy, almost crying.

The guy didn't know what to say. 'Um, she gave me advice and I didn't want her to do that.' Magnus looked at the guy. You could see in his face that he knew that that wasn't a valid excuse. Bob Ross didn't even look angry, just disappointed. That was worse, because nobody wants to see such a kind person almost in tears. The guy blushed, dropped his paintbrush and walked to the window. 'I'll throw myself out.' He jumped out, ready to respawn just in time for dinner.

Bob told Halfborn to bring the girl to the hospital. Halfborn didn't want to tell him that they didn't have that in hotel Valhalla, because you just died and reappeared. He brought the girl away, deciding that asking the hotel manager what to do was probably his best bet. Meanwhile, painting class continued.

Magnus painting was almost done. It was a scene of true destruction (what did you expect with something like the Hunger Games?), but it looked good. Then, as if the Norns had been waiting to ruin something, Magnus accidently dropped a speck of red paint on a green part. It messed up the piece completely. He stared at it, and just... felt like crying. He broke his paintbrush in half and growled.

Bob Ross appeared behind him. 'It looks so good!' He said. Magnus shrugged.

'I ruïned it.' He pointed at the red paint that had started to drip down, ruining even more of the painting. Bob laughed. 'That's a happy little accident. Come, you just need to make it better.' Bob got some paint, and swiftly made the red paint look like a mockingjay. Magnus gasped. 'It looks wonderful,' he said. Bob nodded.

'You should always see the pretty things in something, boy.' He smiled again, and walked away.

After the painting class, Magnus felt so peaceful inside. He even couldn't be bothered by the people screaming at each other in the elevator. He stepped out, onto his floor, and was immediately tackled by Mallory. 'Beantown! You're not dead! What witchcraft did you use?' Magnus stared at her.

'Bob Ross, Mallory. Now take your happy little anger somewhere else, okay?' Mallory's mouth hung open, while she angrily got a huge bar of chocolate out of her pocket. 'Guess you win the bet. But sleep with one eye open, Beantown!'


	6. Book Club To The Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mallory is set on revenge. And of course the best place to get that is at... the book club?

Magnus liked to read, so when he heard that there was a book club, he joined it. He was a simple man like that, sometimes. This was the very first session, and they had decided to read Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë (a book which your loving narrator absolutely hates, but I'll try to not go on a rant). Magnus didn't quite like it, but thought it was alright. He arrived at the room in which the book club took place, and was surprised to see that there were couches with soft cushions everywhere. In the middle of the room stood a small coffee table, and a few people were already seated on the sofas. Magnus sat down next to the only other girl he knew, which was Sarah, from floor six.

They waited ten minutes, and when no-one else came into the room, the leader started the session. 'So, everyone, you can tell me what you think of the book, but first, please tell me your names!' She pointed at an older man, who was sitting next to Magnus. The man wanted to say his name, but then the door flew open. Magnus looked at it, and decided that this would be the perfect moment for thunder to strike and dramatic music to play, because there in the doorframe stood Mallory, with her own, shiny copy of wuthering heights.

Magnus bit his lip. Mallory didn't really like to read, which meant there was only one reason she was here: she wanted to get revenge on him, because of the time he had won a bet against her by not dying during painting class. She sunk into the Sofa, between Magnus and the old man. 'I'd like to join, please,' she said, with a grin in Magnus' direction. The woman who ran the club nodded happily, not noticing the death glares Mallory and Magnus were giving each other.

'So, once again, what are your names?' Everyone in the group mentioned their names, and then the session truly started. 'But first, who wants a cup of tea with a cookie?' Everyone put up their hands, and the woman started happily giving people cookies and tea (except for Mallory - she grabbed two cookies, like a true rebel).

'So. Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë.' The leader clapped in her hands. One girl (Elisa, Magnus believed,) raised her hand. 'I thought Heathcliff was terrible, because he literally...' she was broken off by the old man.

'No way! Heathcliff was nobel! Catherine had to be a golddigger to marry Linton! It isn't...' Elisa jumped up, which caused her to spill her cup of tea. 'You're wrong! Emily would never...' the leader clapped in her hands.

'Elisa, Jean, please calm down or fight it out.'

'Fight it out!' They yelled at once. Magnus and Mallory shot each other a look. Magnus didn't know how they could fight it out in this small room without having to break everything (but then again, maybe that was supposed to happen). The leaded pushed a cushion aside, and picked up the remote control that was lying underneath. She pushed a button, and part of the wall moved aside. Behind that wall was a boxing ring, with chairs and a bunch of bookcases shoved against the wall.

Elisa and Jean climbed into the ring, as the rest of the book club members sat down around the ring. Magnus looked around the room. Of course. Of course this wasn't going to be peaceful. If there would be an activity called 'Peace to the death,' someone would find a way to make it violent.

'Contestants! Take your places!' the leader yelled. Elisa and Jean took their places. The leader got an air horn out of the nowhere. 'Alright! Go!' She yelled, while she made the air horn go off. Magnus held his hands against his ears, but it didn't help. When the sound of the airhorn died down, Magnus didn't know what was going on because his ears where ringing to hard. Someone had done something with that airhorn, probably for an activity called 'Loud sounds to the death' (Yes, that is a real thing, and Magnus had sworn long ago that he would never put a foot into the room it was being held in).

When Magnus looked back up at the ring, Elisa just punched Jean straight into his gut. Jean bent over. Elisa placed her knee in a very painful place, and pushed Jean to the ground. The leader counted to three, and after that sounded the airhorn again. '... Won! Wuthering Heights is problematic!' She said, way more cheerful than you would think (Magnus didn't hear the first words she said. Somebody clearly did something to that airhorn, and for some reason nobody had put it right).

After the battle was over, Magnus made the mistake to look at Mallory while they walked back to the tea-room. She gave him a look that could only mean one thing: 'I'll disagree with anything you say, and when it's time, I'll kick your butt in the ring.' Magnus decided at that moment not to say anything, a resolution of which he knew he couldn't keep it.

The discussion went on for a while, and Magnus kept his mouth shut. He looked at his pocket watch, and realised they only had fifteen minutes to go. A smile grew on his face. He might actually be able to survive this! He reached out to the plate with cookies, but then heard a few dreaded words: 'Magnus, what do you say when you want another biscuit?' Without thinking, Magnus said: 'Miss, can I please get another cookie?'

Mallory jumped up, and Magnus realised his mistake. 'Magnus, I disagree with that, and veto you to the ring. You don't deserve another biscuit.' The leader got up before Magnus could protest against that, and felt that he was dragged into the ring by the rest of the book club.

He looked around, and stared at Mallory. Hm, he could go for her head or her chest. If he chose the wrong place, he would be defeated. Head or chest? Before he could really choose, the air-horn sounded again, and Magnus just stood silent still.

It was enough. Mallory charged at him, smacked him on the head with her copy of wuthering Heights and also hit him in that spot that hurts a lot. Magnus gave up and sunk to the floor, while Mallory stabbed him. He felt the molecules of his body return to his bedroom, while that terrible air horn went off again. Weird. He didn't even know you were allowed to bring a weapon to the book club.


	7. Swimming To The Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang goes for a relaxing swim, but we all know what the word 'relaxing' means in Hotel Valhalla

Magnus wasn't very sure that he was going to enjoy this. Being in a 'To The Death' situation was usually not to bad, because you would return to your room, usually in time for dinner, but to be vulnerable to weapons while wearing nothing but swim trunks felt... really weird. He was waiting for Alex, Mallory and TJ to get ready to go to the pool as well (Halfborn had heard that they wanted to go swimming and had mumbled something about promising to go to Peace To The Death).

Alex was the first one to change into his green swimming trunks, and step out of changing cabin, onto the slippery floor. 'Hey Magnus. What do you think will be the bringer of doom in this activity?' he asked. Magnus shrugged.

'I do not know. It could be anything. Maybe there are exploding water polo-balls, or you can't touch the lines without them burning your hands. Even though we are in water.' Alex laughed. 'Could be.'

Mallory got out of her changing cabin as well, but she immediately lost her balance and slipped. 'Ouch!' Magnus suppressed a laugh; Alex could have done that, too, but instead he laughed out loud. 'Good job, Mallory. How many people do you think will slip to death?' Magnus let out a giggle. 'I hope not a lot,' TJ said as he stepped out of the changing cabin. 'Now let's go to the pool, shall we?' Magnus nodded. Alex and Mallory were to busy trying to punch each other to do that.

They all walked through the shower area. 'Guys, we need to shower,' Magnus stated. Alex rolled his eyes. 'Why Magnus? We are really not that dirty.' Magnus raised his eyebrows. Imagine if everyone thought like that, and the dudes from floor seven hundred would go into the pool without showering.' Mallory got a little pale, and walked to the showers. Alex shuddered, and did the same (TJ was a good noodle, who did not need Magnus to tell him he needed to shower).

They stepped into the pool, and Mallory immediately almost slipped again. She growled, and held onto TJ's arm. A guy from the third floor saw that, and laughed. 'Mallory, do you really need a new boyfriend? But what a nice, baby blue bathing suit with yellow frills are you wearing! It would be wonderful if...' What would be wonderful, we never find out, because Mallory let go of TJ's arm and launched herself at the guy from the third floor. Together, they fell into (luckily deep part, otherwise this would have been a very short trip) the pool.

TJ rushed to them to see if he could help. Magnus was janked away by Alex. 'Come on, Magnus, let's go watch the waterpolo games!' she exclaimed. Yeah, 'Watch' it, Magnus thought. Of course, we are not going to jump into the pool when we see something we do not agree with. He just let himself be pulled along by Alex.

The water polo games were much more violent than Magnus was expecting. It was a lot like Dodgeball to the death, except that it was in the water and with goals. Magnus did not think that usual waterpolo had more than one ball, but this game sure had. The moment they walked into the room, a goal was scored, and one team started cheering. A girl from the other team threw a ball at one of them. It exploded, and the person drowned. Immediately, his teammates got into action, trying to throw balls at the opposing team.

'How do they get the balls to explode at the right moment?' Magnus asked Alex. He shrugged.

'I don't know. Maybe it has a button or something.' a weird smile grew on his face. 'Why don't we find out?' he said. Magnus did not have a lot of time to react. Instead of saying that it was not a good idea, he just sprinted back to the door, so that Alex could not pull him along. He turned around, and saw that Alex cannonballed into the pool.

Magnus could not tear his eyes away. He saw Alex get hold of the bal, and launch it at someone else. The ball exploded, and two people got sent back to their rooms. With a move that only a child of Loki could truly pull off, he changed into an eel. When he reached the edge of the pool, he turned into a fly and flew away. Magnus did not know how fast he had to get out of that room. 

Alex turned back into a human when they were back by the main, big pool (The one Mallory had fallen into). 'What was that?' Magnus asked him. He didn't answer, but bit his lip.

'Wait.' He slowly spread his arms, and slowly stood on his toes. Slowly, the swimming trunks turned into a bathing suit, in the same green and pink colours. When the suit was completely done, she turned to Magnus. 'I wanted to know how those balls worked.' Magnus nodded.

'Cool. Was the magical girl part of that transformation truly necessary?'

'No,' Alex agreed, 'But it does make it look cooler.' Magnus wanted to say something back to her, but was stopped by Mallory, who threw him into the pool, without any explanation.

Magnus waved his arms around, like one does when you are thrown into a body of water. He swam up to the surface again, only to be hit in the face with a pair of swimming goggles. 'Sorry, Magnus!' someone yelled. He spat out a mouth full of water. He looked around, and saw that Mallory, Alex and TJ were laughing like crazy. 'Haha, really funny. You know what, I am going to see how many laps I can swim without anybody doing something to me,' He said. Alex landed next to him. 'Good idea,' she said.

After six laps, Two girls almost jumped on their backs while diving into the water. Magnus wanted to swim further, but Alex stopped him. 'I think they are going to do a battle of who can swim underwater the longest. Magnus stopped swimming. There was no way that that could end well in any way Magnus could think of. Yet, both girls managed swim an entire lap before slowing down. 'Girl in the pink bikini is not going to make it,' Alex predicted. Magnus did not answer

Alex was right. The girl in the pink bikini sunk to the bottom of the pool, and disappeared. The other girl tried to swim up to the surface, but for some reason she cheered under the water. She got some water into her lungs, and choked.

'Well, that was useless. I hope she gets some extra fries this evening,' Magnus said to Alex. Alex did not react, but she climbed out of the pool. 'I am tired.'

'That is random.'

'So? I heard they have a relax zone.' Magnus climbed out of the pool as well.

'Let's check what kind of weird things they do there. I do not want to walk back to floor eighteen, you know.'

'I can hear some sarcasm in that comment.'

'Are you sure?' Alex laughed, and grabbed his hand.

'Let's go and see what it is before we jump to conclusions.'

They entered the room, and a wave of steam hit Magnus in the face. Well, not literally, but it felt like it. 'This feels like they turn up the heat, just to see who can last the longest,' Magnus whispered to Alex. Alex nodded. 'Jup.'

From the left, an elderly, japanese, lady came walking up to them. 'Do you two youngsters seek a place where there is no fighting?' she asked, with a slight Japanese accent. Alex shrugged, but Magnus nodded.

'If that's a thing in this wild place.'

'There is a pool where fighting is not allowed,' the lady told them. She pointed at a door that was kind of hidden behind a plant. 'They generally follow that rule over there. The last time they had a fight was in 1456.'

'That is a good enough ratio for me,' magnus answered. 'Thank you so much.' The lady smiled, and disappeared into what seemed to be the big nothing.

Still a little wary, Alex tried the door. Behind it was a large pool, but it was calm. There was no fighting, no yelling, no trying to see who is best at swimming underwater. It was a refreshment; finally, the first calm spot since Bob Ross was in the hotel. Alex stepped into the water. She looked like she was dying from pure happiness (There is an old legend in Hotel Valhalla that once, someone got so happy that they evaporated from luck. The person still lives on floor seventy, and some people say they were there).

Magnus Always glided into the pool, and slowly started to swim laps. It was so relaxing to swim without being attacked.

That afternoon, they slowly walked back to the changing rooms. 'That was pretty chill,' Magnus said. Alex nodded. 'Yeah, it really was. Maybe we can...' What they might could is still a mystery, because Mallory came running up behind them. She bumped into Alex, both of them slipped, and they crashed against a wall. Both of them were immediately gone. Magnus did not know if he should laugh or cry. TJ also walked back into the changing room, and he started laughing. So Magnus just laughed along. 'Come on, TJ, let's change back to normal clothes. Maybe we can get some extra fries before them, then.'


	8. Wedding To The Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A wedding in hotel valhalla is a fairy tale, but a very specific kind.

Alex pulled Magnus' tie straight. Alex herself was wearing a nice blue dress. 'I do not think there has ever been a wedding in this hotel.' Magnus nodded.

'Probably not. Yet, there is a first time for everything, right?' Alex shrugged.

'Yeah, I guess.' She pulled Magnus' coat right. 'Alright, we are ready.' Magnus pursed his lips, and hung Alex' necklace right. 'Now we are ready.'

Together, they stepped out into the hallways. After waiting for a whole five seconds, Magmus rolled his eyes and banged on Mallory's door. 'Mallory! Come on! We need to be ready!' It sounded like something was thrown at the door. 'Yeah-yeah! Wait!' Magnus sighed dramatically. 'Guys! We are going to be late!' he yelled. 'We still need to get down to th...' Alex softly put her hand on his mouth. 'Ssh. Magnus, we still have thirty minutes.' Magnus tried to pull her hand away; yet, then T.J. stepped out of his room.

'T.J.! That looks great!' Alex squealed. Magnus pushed her hand away.

'It does. I appreciate it that SOMEONE knows how to dress appropriately!' he said, to loud for it to still be normal. Alex punched him on the arm. 'Why are you so freaky about nice clothes today? Have you lost a bet from Blitzen or something?' She asked. Magnus shrugged. 'I do not want Tamsin and Julian to think that we are sloppy!'

Mallory stepped out of her room. 'Beantown, I do not think they care...' Magnus gasped, which cut her off. 'Mallory! Why are you wearing black to a wedding?' Mallory rolled her eyes. 'Whatever. It is the only nice dress I have. And little black dress, right?' Magnus wanted to pull open his mouth again, but Alex put her hand on his mouth. 'It needs some Pearls, Mallory. Do you have those?'

Mallory rolled her eyes, and walked back into her room. She came back with a long string of Pearls, that made her look so classy that even self-declared-for-today-fashion-expert-Magnus-Chase shut up. Alex raised one of her eyebrows. 'Mallory, maybe a whiny question, but where did you get those?' Mallory shrugged.

'Somewhere.' Alex raised her eyebrows higher and higher, until it looked very unsettling. Mallory sighed. 'Fine, I got them from my mum.'

Halfborn stept out of his room. He was wearing a suit, and Magnus was fine with it. Mallory hooked her arm through his (they looked good together, Magnus thought). 'Alright, let's go!' Magnus announced. They all stepped into the elevator and went down, to the moshpit... I mean the wedding.

They got out. T.J., Mallory and Halfborn immediately disappeared in the crowd. Alex pointed at something, but Magnus didn't get to see it; Blitzen basically tackled him. 'Magnus! Did you do what I asked and made sure that everybody is dressed properly!?' Magnus nodded.

'Yes. Although Alex probably already guessed that I lost a bet from you.' Blitzen shrugged.

'Alex is smart, Magnus,' Blitzen said while pointing at Alex. Magnus nodded. You just couldn't be angry at Blitzen for very long.

Blitzen left. Alex put her chin in the air. 'Smart, Magnus. Now, what do we need to do while we wait for the couple?' Magnus shrugged.

'Yeah, honestly I don't know. I just read everything about fashion that Blitzen slapped onto a list. I don't know anything else. But, like, we have a present, so it's whatever.' Alex shook her head. 'We are going to misrepresent this floor.'

After five minutes of seeking something to eat (It seemed like the right thing to do), Tamsin and Julian appeared. Blitzen appeared out of the crowd, which still got vaster and vaster. How many people are there here? We'll get squished to death, Magnus thought. Deep inside, he already knew that at some point, a fight would break out and the entire room would become a huge mess.

'Do you see the silk of her dress? It is magnificent!' Blitzen blabbed, To a Magnus and Alex who were acting like they listened. Yet, they had to agree, the bride looked really good (The groom looked like a groom. You know what I mean). Tamsins' dress was white and gold, with sleeves, but both of her shoulders were bare. The skirt was slender. Her vail and the train of her dress were long.

While Blitzen was still gushing about the gorgeous dress, Alex pulled Magnus away. 'Magnus, the wedding cake is right over there. We must stand at the front.' Magnus nodded. A lot of people would want wedding cake, and the big one in the middle was clearly the best. It would be fighting for a piece.

Tamsin and Julian strided to the front, while holding hands. People started to cheer, which sounded like a bunch of t-rexes were attacking. The happy couple did not get distracted, though. Tamsin picked up the knife next to the wedding cake. She cut out two pieces of cake. She gave one to her brand new husband. Together, they took the first bite.

A couple of residents who had volunteered to be waiters cut the cake into pieces, while Tamsin and Julian walked back into the hall. Magnus gave a silent salute for the brave waiters. They were probably feeling the hungry spirit of about a Thousand hungry warriors.

The cake was sliced up into small pieces. The waiters put the knives down and got out of the way as quick as they possibly could, while the hungry masses ran towards the cake.

Alex acted like she tried to run towards the really big wedding cake. Yet, halfway through, she ran towards a smaller cake on the side. Magnus decided he was going for the big fish. He would not stop, not even for what looked like the most chocolatey cake ever. He grabbed a paper plate, dropped it again, grabbed a piece of cake, stuffed it in his mouth and slid under the table.

On the other side, he krept from under the table, and stood up. He heard someone clap behind him. He turned around. Behind him, Alex picked up her big slice of chocolate heaven again. She took a really big bite. Magnus' facial expression got darker.

'Glad that it tastes nice. Where are the others?' Alex shrugged.

'How should I know? Let's just go and congratulate the couple.' Magnus rolled his eyes, but let himself be let away by her.

A huge line had formed before the couple, of basically all the people who weren't fighting for a slice cake or the people who were send back to their rooms because they were to weak for a slice of cake. Magnus looked at the start of the line. 'We are going to be here for a while. I hope that... Oh, wait, that's Mallory!' Magnus pulled Alex along, to the front of the line, where Mallory was standing.

'Hey! What are you doing?!'

'Get back to the back of the line!'

'Alex, just ignore them,' Magnus whispered.

'I was not saying anything,' was the answer.

Magnus tapped on Mallory's shoulder. She turned around. 'Mallory, hey, is it alright with you if...'

'Magnus, what are you doing here!? You should be at the beginning of the line!' Magnus stood there, with his mouth open. A bunch of a people standing in line reached for their daggers and swords. Magnus looked at the bride and groom, who did not look like they were going to help the trespassers.

Alex and Magnus ran away, while a whole lot of guests charged them. Magnus looked over his shoulder. 'Alex, we are not going to win. What do you think of getting a slice of cake for the way back to our rooms?' Alex face lit up.

'Great idea!'

They made a U-turn and raced towards the wedding cake. They basically jumped into it, while a bunch of angry valkyrie and einherjar attacked them.

When they reappeared, Magnus could still taste the cake on his lips. Well, the first wedding ever in Hotel Valhalla was a success, apparently.


	9. Cooking To The Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are a hundred ways to get injured in the kitchen, but which one will it be today?

Magnus knew for a fact that this was going to go very, very wrong. Standing in a kitchen with sharp knives, fire and boiling water? No way everyone was going to come out alive (Even though they were already dead). The question is how it was going to go wrong. Knives flying around the kitchen? Getting burned with water or fire? Eating too much marshmallows and exploding? Who knows!

He stepped into the enourmous kitchen that Hotel Valhalla for some reason had, together with T.J. and Halfborn (Mallory and Alex were doing Origami to the death somewhere else). On the right side of the kitchen, everything was clearly made for Giants. On the left side, the kitchen was designed for dwarfs. Magnus saw a few pairs of sharp knives glinster. 

A giant and a dwarf appeared out of nowhere. 'Hello! We teach cooking!' The dwarf said, with a very deep voice. The giant nodded. 'The kitchens for humans are over there,' he said, in an even deeper voice. The giant pointed at a kitchen counter, with multiple ovens and dishwashers wedged next into them, that was as long as a street. Slowly, the einhirjar walked to the counter.

'Alright, you all can start with cooking some soup. There are enough furnaces for groups of two.' T.J., Magnus and Halfborn looked at each other. Magnus coughed. 'So...' 

'Let's do rock-paper-scissors,' Halfborn suggested.

'Sounds like a plan,' T.J. and Magnus said at the same time. 

First, Magnus and Halfborn played. Magnus won. In the second round, T.J. won. Halfborn grunted. 'Say, Sarah, would you...' he begun. 

'He lost rock-paper-scissors!' someone screeched. Halfborn cursed and sprinted towards the doors of the kitchen. Someone threw a spear towards him, which hit him - he was immediately send back to his room. The girl who had thrown the spear cheered, but the cheer quickly became a scream when she was picked up from the floor by the giant. 

'Hey! I despise violence in the kitchen!' He walked to the door with the screaming einhirjar in his hand. He threw her through the door, then closed it again. 

'Alright, now go back to the furnaces!' The dwarf yelled. T.J. and Magnus shuffeled behind a furnace that had a fridge close to it. 'We are going to begin with tomato soup. There are already cut slices of tomato in the refridgerators.' Magnus opened the refridgerator. There were, in fact, sliced up tomatoes in the fridge, together with some sliced meat. 

He got out the tomatoes and put them on the kitchen counter. Meanwhile, T.J. had gotten out a pan. 'Throw the tomatoes in the pan with some water,' they heard behind them. T.J. narrowed his eyes. 'Wait.This isn't the kind of tomato soup where you just throw water into the mix and it is done, right?' he asked no-one in particulair. Magnus shrugged.

'I hope it isn't. I mean, I already know how to make that.' 

'I think even toddlers know how to make instant soup.' Still, they dumped water and sliced tomato into the pan. They watched it for a minute, After which the dwarf announced that they had to grab a baggie out of their kitchen cabinets. T.J. and Magnus groaned when they saw what was in there: Instant tomato soup. They threw it into the pan without grace. 

They only had to add the meat and then they were done. It might have been easy, but it did not put Magnus and T.J. in a good mood. 'I am pretty sure Halfborn once made a pan of instant tomato soup with fresh tomatoes and meat,' Magnus muttered. T.J. nodded.

'I hope we get to do something more exciting next.' Around them, people had mixed reactions. Some of them seemed to think they just reached the height of fine cookery, others had Magnus and T.J.'s reaction and one lady threw a laddle across the room, before storming out.

'Good, good. The next course will be shrimp, but we'll start with the vegetables as well,' The giant said. He clapped in his hands. The fridges lit up for a moment. A knife block appeared on the kitchen counter. While T.J. got the (Already ready - the knives were more for show) meat out of the fridge, Magnus narrowed his eyes and picked up a knife.

The sharp part was wrapped into bubble wrap. Magnus sighed a deep, deep sigh while he realised that the entire kitchen was made 'safe' - which wasn't so bad on a surface level. Yet, this was hotel Valhalla. Somehow, someone would find a way to weaponize something. If they had nothing to distract them on top of that, the battle would be messy.

T.J. slowly put the shrimp in a pan that had randomly appeared, with cooking oil already inside. He and Magnus sighed at the same time. 'Boring?' Magnus asked

'Yeah,' T.J. answered. The meat cooked brown in the pan (Which was also magical, so that it was not hot and too light to smack someone on the head with). Magnus opened a drawer. 'Have you seen a fork somewhere, or something? I want a taste.' T.J. started to help him with looking for utensils. 

After three minutes, they realised there was a suspicious absence of utensils (and also of about half of the cooking class, who had apparently quit out of boredom). Magnus looked around. He saw a girl falling on the ground. Slowly, her body disappeared. 

He heard the dwarf yelp. 'What happened?' The partner of the girl looked at him. She looked tired. 'I think she died from boredom.' She yawned. A few people sighed. The dwarf scoffed.

'What bored? You are standing in a kitchen! Cooking! This is as interesting as it will get!' 

'We should have gone to Origami to the death,' T.J. whispered in Magnus ear. Magnus nodded. Before they went of to the kitchen, they had told Alex and Mallory that Origami was the most boring thing ever. Irony, he thought.

Meanwhile, the dwarf and the giant were ranting on. 'It's great!'

'Our knives are wrapped in bubble wrap and we basically don't do any cooking!' It came out of Magnus mouth before he realised it. The dwarf turned to him. Magnus thought this was the angriest dwarf he would ever see. 'So you all don't attack each other!' he screeched. Magnus sighed and opened his mouth to snap back, but he didn't have to. Because someone threw their meat at the dwarf.

A lot of manly cheering errupted from the people who were still in the room. Other people started to throw parts of meals around the kitchen. Magnus decided to hide when he saw someone picking up a bubble-wrapped knife and chucking it across the kitchen. 

He and T.J. hid behind the huge kitchen isle of the giant. 'Is that one guy from floor threehundredfifty picking up a fridge, or am I seeing thing?' T.J. asked. Magnus shook his head. 'No, it's true. Also, he is throwing it across the kitchen.'

The fridge opened while on it's way to the other side of the kitchen. three pans filled with tomato soup fell out of the fridge. Magnus couldn't help it; he laughed. 'What are the odds of picking up a random fridge and it being the one filled with tomato soup? There are at least forty fridges!' T.J. shook his head.

'I don't know, Magnus.' A laddle in the form of a dinosaur flew past their heads. Magnus picked it up. 'Hm. Let's leave. It's getting spicy in here.' 

Yet, there were complications. Because the only way out was past the food fight. An einhirjar threw a bubblewrapped knife against the head of another one, who bumped against the kitchen isle and got send back. Another girl slipped on the river of soup, broke her neck and dissappeared. 

By a miracle, the mercy of some god or because of the power of Elon Musk, they made it out of there without any torn up clothes, But with a ladle in the form of a dinosaur. Magnus looked at the ladle. 'I hope they won't miss it,' Magnus whispered softly, 'Because I am going to call them Kevin.'


	10. Fire Drill To The Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Every now and then, Hotel Valhalla catches on fire. Of course, the residents must be prepared.

Magnus flipped over the page of his book and took a sip of his hot chocolate. He heard a knock at the door. 'What?'

'I'm bored.'

'I cannot do anything do about that, Al.' He heard the door open. Alex walked through his room and dropped on his bed. 'What are you doing?'

'Reading?'

'What book?'

'Jaws?'

'And?'

'I don't understand how a book about a flesh-eating shark can have more sexy scenes than most romance novels.' Alex didn't immediately answer.

'You know, I think the movie was also...' A loud, eery sound cut her off. Magnus looked up from his book. 'What's that?' he yelled. Alex had jumped from his bed.

'No idea, but it does not sound like a good thing.' The door flung open. T.J. stood in the doorway, with his gun. 'Has Ragnarok started?' Magnus looked around.

'No, I do not hear Heimdall's horn,' Alex answered. A red light filled the room. Alex, Magnus and T.J. walked out of Magnus' room. 'What do we do?' T.J. asked.

'Go down and ask what is going on, I guess? I mean, maybe this is one of Odin's ways to alert us all so we can watch one of his powerpoints?' Magnus answered. T.J. shrugged and walked towards the elevator. She pushed the button.

The doors did not open. T.J. banged on them. 'That will not help, T.J.'

'Then how do we get down?'

'The stairs?' Magnus suggested. Alex nodded. T.J.'s eyes got big.

'Are you two crazy?' Alex walked past them and opened the door towards the stairs. A cloud of dust got out. 'No?' she said, while stepping inside. Magnus stepped through the door as well. T.J. whimpered and joined them.

Immediately, he started running downstairs. 'T.J.! What are you doing?' Alex yelled, while trying to keep up. Magnus reached for his ears. The sound was less loud in the staircase. Yet, he heard something else, above him. It sounded like a thunderous storm. Suddenly, he realised why T.J. was running.

Just like T.J., he started bolting down the stairs. 'Alex! Run!' he yelled. Alex rolled her eyes, but she followed her floormates. 'Do we know where Halfborn and Mallory are?'

'They were at History Class To The Death, I believe,' T.J. answered. Magnus raised his eyebrows.

'Why would you do that of your own accord?'

'No idea,' T.J. answered.

Above them, the sound of thousands of feet got louder and louder. Magnus tried to run quicker. On his right, he saw a door flying open. The inhabitants of floor ten came bolting through the door. Ten floors to go, Magnus thought. He started running even quicker. Alex also seemed to have realised what was going on.

Together with floor ten (And the other floors that started to realise what was going on) they ran downstairs. As more and more people started to realise what was going on, the stairs got more and more crowded and the people started running quicker and quicker, they started to hear light screams here and there. Magnus pushed the girl who was running in front of him aside. She tried to bite him, but he ducked away.

He reached the dining hall in one piece. He could not find T.J. anywhere, but saw Alex's green hair somewhere in the crowd. The sound in the dining hall was ear-destroying. The red lights distracted him from everything else around him.

Three minutes later, the crowd of extremely confused einherjar started to get fussy. Here and there, fights broke loose. Magnus tried to find anybody he knew back, when suddenly the blaring alarm stopped. The einherjar looked around in the few seconds before Odin's' voice boomed through the speakers: 'Sorry for the hold up! Please pay attention to the PowerPoint!' A red PowerPoint popped up.

'This is a Fire Drill. You are all expected to go through the big doors to the left. Then, go to the bifrost and find your floormates. New instructions will follow!'

The big doors flew open. Magnus just started running, along with almost all of the other inhabitants of Hotel Valhalla. He didn't care about anybody else - he just tried not to get trampled by other people.

He got through the door. He almost couldn't make out where the bifrost was. 'How many people does this hotel house?' he muttered to himself.

'About 400.678,' a woman right next to him said. Magnus looked at her. She shrugged, before she got pushed away by a cloud of other people. Magnus slowly started to walk slower. He did not want to accidentally walk of the bifrost and plumb to his actual death.

Somewhere in the crowd, he spotted Halfborn (Who was rather tall and hard to miss). Magnus started to elbow his way through the thick crowd. Everytime he looked up to try and find Halfborn, the half-troll seemed to be in a different location. Magnus didn't even know if he was pushed around so much, Halfborn was pushed around so much, or if both of them were pushed around so much.

After at least twenty minutes, Magnus reached Halfborn. The half-troll was carrying around Mallory, which was not a bad idea considering what was going on. Magnus held on to his arm. 'Have you seen Alex?' Mallory shook her head.

'No. Maybe she got trampled.

'Alex? No way. I believe T.J. got trampled on the stairs, though.' Mallory shrugged.

'Oh well.'

Five minutes later, Alex appeared right next to them, while Heimdal appeared in front of the einherjar. 'Hello, if you are currently standing on the bifrost, that means that you have made it out alive and have successfully finished the fire drill! Congratulations!' Two metal detector portals appeared out of nowhere. 'Please all line up and step through these portals, so that we know who made it out alive and who needs a little more training!'

Magnus felt all of the hope for survival flowing out of his body, while all of the inhabitants started bolting to the metal portals. He heard Heimdal yelling at them to calm down and form a neat line.

Miraculously, they slowly did (Once Odin had joined Heimdal, that is). Yet, it was nearly 2 A.M. when Magnus got to pass through the portals. He did not know where the rest of his floormates were. Tired and hungry, he started slowly shuffling back to the hotel and into the elevator (Thank the gods that it worked again and that he did not need to climb nineteen floors). While still outside, he tried not to notice the slides they put up for floors forty and up (Seriously, why don't they have those things for the floors below that?).

He stepped onto his floor and slowly walked into his room. He dropped face-first on his bed. 'Muh... auw! Magnus!'

'Alex! What are you doing in my room!?'

'This is my room, thank you very much!' Magnus slowly looked around. He noticed some of Alex' stuff being scattered through the room. 'Oh shoot. Sorry, Al.' Alex pushed him away and rolled her eyes. 'Sleep tight.'

'Yeah, you too.'

He did sleep tight, until the alarm went off again. He had accidentally slept in his clothes. He jumped out of bed and dropped on the hallway floor. 'WHY?'

'Don't worry, einherjar! Only those who have not passed earlier are expected to go outside! The rest of you can go back to sleep!' a voice Magnus didn't even recognise yelled through the intercom. He looked up. He saw Alex, Mallory and Halfborn walking back into their rooms, looking annoyed and tired. T.J. was already standing by the door. He looked like he could scream (Which he did, while he ran down the stairs).

Magnus dragged himself back into his room and dropped onto his bed. The sound pounded on his ears, so loudly that he started to wonder if he was not dying. Luckily, the sound stopped quicker then before.

'I am glad to announce that everyone got through the fire drill this time!' The voice boomed through the speakers. 'And, eh, we just decided that all activities will be postponed today! Sleep tight! Good like that? No? Well, I do not...' the intercom stopped.

Magnus did not know how long he slept. He slowly got up. Immediately, Alex came bolting inside. 'Magnus! You are back!' Magnus blinked.

'Back?'

'Well, a few minutes after the fire drill, the alarms where put off. Four minutes later, we all noticed that some idiot dropped a match somewhere on floor eight hundred. They didn't get the alarms back on, but the voices started screaming again. You, uh... slept through it and the rest of us noticed when we are on the bifrost.' Magnus stared at her.

'Al...alright.' He hopped out of bed. 'Is there any breakfast.' Alex nodded.

'Yeah, we have some eggs and beacon for you.'

'Nice.'


	11. Origami to The Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Literal paper death traps will be made.

Alex stretched his arms. 'This should be interesting.' Mallory shrugged.

'I have been here before. It is not that fun.'

'You came back, though.'

'Yes, because I want at least ten more folded cranes for my army. With just a tip of dust out of vanaheim, they can come to life.' Alex raised his eyebrows.

'What do you plan to do with them?'

'Wouldn't you like to know?' Mallory grinned an evil grin after she said it. Alex nodded slowly.

'If you want to be like that.'

Together they pushed open the heavy doors that led to the arts-and-crafts hall (they had to do it together. For some reason that was probably somewhere in Odins' brain, you could only open the doors with two or more people). There were already a few people inside. Some of them were listening to a woman explaining how to fold certain things, others were busy with their own projects. One man was hunched over his desk, with a mountain of origami paper stacked around him and his project, so that nobody could see what he was making.

'What's he making?' Alex asked Mallory. The daughter of Frigg shrugged.

'No idea, but he was here last time, too. Some people think he is trying to make something to blow up floor 1089.'

'Well, he should get to it already, then!'

'I know.' Mallory picked up way to much origami paper to make ten cranes and walked to a nearby table where no-one was siting. Alex also picked up way to much paper (The nature gods would be angry that they wasted so much paper and trees) and sat down next to Mallory. Mallory immediately moved two seats away.

'Alright, keep your secrets!' Alex muttered, while he started folding her origami paper. Mallory shrugged. 'Don't you need any lessons about what to do?'

'No, I have a very clear idea about what I want.'

'It is very different from pottery, you know that, right?'

'I am not two years old, Mallory. Now hand me that piece of blue paper,' Alex said, while pointing at a piece of light-blue paper that had the exact same colour as about thirty percent of Alex' paper pile.

They worked in silence for about thirty minutes, Mallory on her army of Paper cranes (Which had grown by thirty-four cranes, which is only slightly more than ten) and Alex on her... whatever it was meant to be. She had folded some of the pieces of paper into others, so that they stuck to each other and made a long sling. Maybe she wanted to decorate a room. She probably had darker plans with it.

'What are you making?'

'Something that will improve life for everyone on floor nineteen.' Mallory huffed, while blindly folding another crane (Her hands had gotten so used to the movements that she didn't even have to look anymore and also they started to hurt). 'My cranes are just meant for the weekly brawl, if you were wondering.'

'I really wasn't,' Alex said, while staring at the (Weirdly hostile looking) collection of cranes in front of Mallory. 'But I am wondering how big this army of you is at this point.'

'Oh, with these added about three-hundred and thirteen cranes big.'

'So, still one-hundred eighty seven to go?'

'Still one-hundred and eighty seven to go,' Mallory agreed, while she folded another one out of sparkling pink paper. 'The people of floor eighty seven can better watch out tomorrow.'

Someone started laughing in the back of the room. It was an evil, sinister laugh, the kind you only hear from Disney villains. Mallory and Alex turned around. In the back of the room sat a man with a huge origami Yoda. Mallory's mouth fell open.

'How did he get it so big?'

Alex shrugged. 'Either magic or a whole lot of work.' The man walked to the front of his Yoda. Alex and Mallory leaned closer; they wanted to see what he was going to do with it.

'I bet you ten bucks the thing will start to talk and spout wisdom,' Mallory whispered to Alex. Alex nodded.   
'Deal, and also I hope so, because this place could use some wisdom.'

The man got something out of his pocket. 'Is that...'

'Dust from vanaheim? Yes,' Mallory finished the sentence before Alex could. She looked ecstatic. 'None of us are sure if it is legal, but it does wonders for your projects. Also, I think that green ball of paper might actually start to talk!' Alex also got excited. Maybe origami class is interesting after all, she thought.

The guy sprinkled some dust on his Yoda. It did a little shake, before doing one step forward. 'Please, please, please,' Alex heard the man plead. The Yoda stood still for some time - before it pulled a lightsaber out of nowhere and walked to a woman sitting near. It had such a great speed that it had light sabered her down before she even noticed.

Mallory and Alex moved back a little. One person yelped and jumped back, which notified the Yoda that there was someone there and that he should go after it. He lightsabered the poor person down as well, before the leader of the origami club jumped up and threw something on the Yoda.

It was probably a type of powder that worked against the powers of vanaheim dust, because the Yoda stopped moving. The guy sighed. 'Awh.'

'Yoda doesn't even have a lightsaber!' The leader complained. 'Now get out of here and don't let me see you back in at least three weeks!' The guy shrugged and walked out, carrying his Yoda along with him.

'The Weekly brawl is going to be interesting,' Alex remarked. Mallory shrugged.

'Some girl build a t-rex once. It was grand! We all thought we were going to be toast on friday! Bad thing that someone tore it apart before she could use it during the brawl.' Everyone started to get back to work again (Except for the really secretive guy. He hadn't noticed the entire Yoda-debacle).

Mallory's army got close to reaching four-hundred and fifty cranes. Alex sling was still getting longer. At some point, two people had gotten into an argument, which had escalated into one of them strangeling the other with a origami snake. So, ya know, a regular day in Hotel Valhalla.

Alex let the long sling of origami paper go through his fingers. He smirked. 'My work here is almost done!

'So your entire work for today is a sling made of origami paper?'

'It is more than just a sling, Mallory.'

'Then what is it?'

'Wouldn't you like to know?' He snapped, while picking up a green piece of paper to attach it to his sling. Mallory rolled her eyes and folded another crane (From blue paper with glitter). 'I guess I'll see it tomorrow, then.'

At six 'O clock, they got up to go back to their floor. Alex had her mysterious sling and Mallory had her brand new cranes for her air force. While they walked to the big doors, Mallory looked at the guy who still had a million pieces of paper around his Super Secret Project. With one push, she threw all of the paper on the ground. The man screamed at the top of his lungs. He tried to cover his project, but Mallory already saw what it was: A very ingenious looking valentines card for his girlfriend. She smirked.

The guy stared at her with hellfire in his eyes. 'I'll...'

'I won't tell anyone,' Mallory whispered, while piling some of his paper back on the table. 'Just...'  
'I had time left after folding my cannon. Now swear you won't tell!' Mallory swore it, before she scurried after Alex, who was already standing by the door. Together, they pushed it open again.

The day after, everyone from floor nineteen was standing in the arena. Mallory was carrying a basket with her army of five-hundred origami cranes. Alex had his sling around his neck. Magnus, T.J. and Halfborn were just walking behind them, wondering why the other two had origami stuff with them.

They noticed soon enough, when Mallory let her birds fly free, to attack other people in the arena like this was a special origami version of the Hunger games. During the game, Halfborn got taken out by an army of origami frogs (They were with only four hundred. Scrub). Someone flew around with a folded space craft and blasted people down from the sky.

Mallory won that day. Her cranes were able to tear open the spaceship, which made the guy inside drop to the arena floor. They didn't see anything of Yoda with a lightsaber. Mallory just assumed that he was banned that day and would be back to take revenge the next week.

With about three hundred of her cranes still intact, she walked back to the right floor, with the medal around her neck and her box of paper cranes in her box. When she reached floor nineteen, Alex just walked out of her room. 'Mallory! I see that you defended our honor this time?' Mallory nodded.

'Yeah.'

'Why so annoyed?'

'Now I need to fold one-hundred and ninety three more cranes to make up for the lost ones.' Alex laughed. 'Well, then we go back to Origami class. I want to know what kind of dumb stuff people have thought off. Also, my sling needs to be longer for my well-plotted revenge.'

'I thought it was meant to benefit our entire floor?'

'Yes, by getting a well plotted revenge.' Alex strided off to Magnus' room. Mallory shrugged and walked back to her room. With her box, she walked to her part of the world tree. 'Come on,' she whispered. All of the birds (Which still had some vanaheim dust on them) hopped into the tree - in which Mallory had made each and every one of them a nest, made from Origami paper. She threw the box on the floor and walked back to the bedroom part of her room.

She collapsed on her bed, with all of her clothes still on and the medal around her neck. A few seconds later, she was asleep, while her birds slowly stopped moving and became insentient again, waiting for their new pinch of vanaheim dust.


	12. Wii-party games to the death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> People won't just get punsihed on the WII during these games.

Mallory threw open the doors and made a pirouette into the room. Now this was something she would excel at. Yes, she wasn't bad at origami - but Wii-party games? The others didn't even stand a chance, and they felt it. As soon as she made her entrance, people huddled closer to their screens, clutching the controllers.

Well, that was what Mallory saw. Magnus, who came into the room second, just saw a bunch of einherjar looking at their screens. They only looked away now and then to make murderous eye contact with one another. Magnus didn't know what happened to the losers, but he figured it couldn't be nice.

Magnus and Mallory made a bee line for an empty Wii. 'Wait! The round isn't over yet!' They heard behind them. They looked around and saw a skinny man running towards them. 'We play in rounds,' he explained, 'After this one is over, you two can play along. Otherwise we'll get people trying to weasel their way back into a game!' Mallory sighed, but Magnus just nodded. It seemed pretty fair to him.

After a few minutes of waiting (Some people had already finished their matches and were now just looking at their opponent with looks that didn't promise anything good), the last people finished the game. Three times, Mallory and Magnus heard a bell. After that, there were suddenly twice as little people in the room.

Magnus swallowed. He got a bad feeling about what might have happened to the people who were in the room just seconds before. Everyone else turned their attention towards a cluster of monitors on the wall. There were about thirty of them, but only thirteen turned on. Magnus mouth fell open. He didn't know what he expected, but seeing that the losers of the games were projected into the game to really fight in it was not it.

Mallory laughed. She nipped him in the side. 'This is amazing! Just look at it!' Magnus blinked. He saw a kid he knew from the three hundredth floor sitting in a Mario Kart car, in the place of Princess Peach. He closed his eyes for a moment, rubbed his forehead and took a deep, deep breath. 'Alright, alright, alright, alright.'

After a few minutes, the live games were over. The people who had won their second matches were teleported back into the room, the people who had lost were never seen again (that day) and were presumably send back to their bedrooms. The people around them cheered, made new pairs and walked to the consoles. Magnus looked at the door. Too far away. He let Mallory pull him towards an Xbox kinect.

He looked at the game. 'Seriously? Just Dance? Are you sure that that is the game you want to play?' Mallory nodded with such confidence that Magnus got just a little more afraid than he had been before. He swallowed and stepped in front of the Xbox. 'I want to select a song,' He told Mallory.

'No way!' Magnus jerked the controller out of her hands. Before Mallory could get it back, he selected 'What is love?' from Haddaway (The only song he knew for sure he could dance to in this game). He pressed play, before giving the controller back to Mallory. She looked like she wanted to kill him right then and there, but they had to dance, so she let it go (For now).

They danced like they could cancel Ragnarok with it. Magnus tapped his feet around like he was trying to step on an annoying fly. Mallory waved her arms around like she had turned into a human helicopter. Some poor kid playing Mario tennis got distracted by them and lost on principle.

After three minutes, the song was over. Mallory and Magnus dropped to the floor, panting. 'I...Am...Sure...That...I...Won...' Mallory said. Magnus coughed.

'No...' Magnus looked up at the screen. He grinned. 'I have ten points more than you do!' Mallory looked at the screen, shaking. 'What? How... I have trained for ages...' The bell sounded behind them. Magnus smiled at her. 'Good luck, Mallory!'

'What will I even do in the real life version? It is Just Dance! What...'

She disappeared before she could say anything else. Magnus sat up, against the TV, so he could watch the monitors. His muscles started to relax. He sought out the screen with Mallory on it. He realised she was the instructor this time. Magnus sighed. Oh, so apparently this was a really entertaining game to lose. He saw that Mallory grinned.

Two random kids who probably just wanted to play Just Dance appeared in front of her. Mallory took a really dramatic pose, before popping out the most difficult dance moves Magnus had ever seen. He was pretty sure she made a handstand somewhere halfway through, which made the kid in front of her almost cry. Magnus saw that it screamed something along the lines of 'Mom! The system is broken!' While running away.

When the game was done, Mallory reappeared in the room. She walked over to Magnus, laughing like crazy. She smacked him on the back. 'Beantown, I forgive you this once. Now let's go play Mario Kart. Magnus also had a smile on his face at this point. 'That poor kid. Alright, and we'll do Rainbow road.'

She rolled her eyes. 'Obviously.'

They walked towards the Wii with Mario Kart booted up. Magnus gave Mallory a smirk. 'Prepare to be destroyed.'

'So, Beantown, you really got the spirit today!' Mallory said, with a tone that was definitely not friendly. Magnus nodded. 'I do. I still need to get revenge for what happened during the book club,' he answered, while the game started up.

'That was 3 months ago?'

'So what?'

Mallory narrowed her eyes, while the countdown began on the screen. 'You'll get it, Magnus!' Mallory sissed. Magnus grinned. 'Dream on.'

The Rainbow road started - and the first turn was the moment Magnus and Mallory realised that they were not good enough at Mario Kart for the Rainbow road. Within twenty seconds, they were shifting between the twelfth and the thirteenth place all the time.

It took them a minute to hit the first round about - and another two minutes for one of them to finally go around it. By this time, some people were already done with their game and were now just hanging around and looking at Magnus and Mallory's screen.

After four more minutes, they had done their first lap - two more to go. At this point, some of the computer puppets started to finish the road, and everyone else in the room was done with their games. Everyone was looking over Mallory and Magnus' shoulder, which made them both quite nervous.

When the last lap came around, Mallory and Magnus were being cheered on by two different groups - one for Mallory and one for Magnus. It made them even more uncomfortable (And made them fall of the track even more often.

After way to much time, Mallory went over the finish line two seconds before Magnus. Her cheering section cheered and laughed and pointed at Magnus' cheerleaders. Magnus dropped the controller from his hands. He was shaking all over. He lost. Why did he lose?

He stood up and took a deep breath, preparing to be warped into a real kart. He tried to visualize the lava. Maybe it would hurt less when he dropped in if he was prepared.

Yet, the leader clapped in her hands. 'Magnus and Mallory! You two have taken more than eight minutes to finish that track! Which means that both of you will be send to the game realm!' Mallory stopped in the middle of her victory dance.

'What!?'

'Did I talk Chinese? Get ready! No, wait, that is not necessary.'

It wasn't necessary because they were immediately send into the race. Bowser's castle; known for its lava. Mallory was standing on the first place, Magnus second. Apparently that was everything Mallory still had from her victory.

They both took a deep breath while the three numbers appeared above their heads. WIthin four seconds, princess peach drove over Mallory and pushed her into the lava. Mallory screamed. Magnus didn't pay attention to her. He was to busy with not falling of the track.

Which didn't do much. After he had entered Bowser's castle, he was hit by a blue shell. He looked around in the last seconds of his puny video game live. He realised that Wario drove over his face. He took a last, shaky breath. 'I'll get you during the next activity, Mallory,' he whispered to himself, while the world got dark and he was transported back into his bed.

Alex looked up when Magnus sleeping body appeared next to him. He slowly put his head down on Magnus chest, whole continuing with his book.

Magnus woke up an hour later. 'Mallory beat me!' He yelled, while almost punching Alex in the head.

'Hey! Calm down!'

'What? Oh, hey Al. I don't know what the next activity is, but I have to beat Mallory in it, whatever the cost!' Alex didn't look up.

'Oh. Well, I'll help you or something. Now let me read.' Magnus looked at him, before he closed his eyes. He was sleepy. The regeneration process had taken too short, because of his anger. He put an arm around Alex' shoulders. 'Sleep tight,' Alex muttered, while still continuing with his book.


	13. The Cinematic Experience To The Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex and Magnus decide to get a classic romantic experience: The cinema.

'Why did we even bother to dress up? This event is probably just going to ruin my nice clothes,' Magnus sulked, while he walked to Hotel Valhalla's super-de-luxe movie theatre with Alex on his arm. Alex, who was also wearing a suit, rolled his eyes. 'It was on the invitation.'

'So what? This is hotel valhalla! Look around, I can spot like six people already who are wearing their pajamas!'

Alex pinched his arm. 'Those thugs from floor five-hundred-and-fifty said they would dress nicely and we cannot let them look better than us, now can we?'

Magnus shrugged. 'I guess.'

At the entrance of the movie theatre stood a man behind a counter. On the counter stood a ticket roll and two popcorn machines. On one of the machines stood a pile of blue tubs, on the other a pile of red tubs. 'Do we have to pay?' Magnus whispered to Alex.

'I don't know!'

'You read the invitation!'

'Well, it said nothing about payment. You never know!'

Magnus sighed, while they entered the queue.

They did not have to pay, thank the Norns. The man behind the counter simply handed them two old-school paper tickets and pointed at his popcorn. 'Are you younglings willing to make a bet?'

'With popcorn?'

The man winked. 'In one of the machines, the popcorn is poisoned, but nobody knows which one.' Magnus felt like laughing and crying at the same time. Of course it could not possibly be easy.

'What is that meant to train?' Alex asked. 'Our abilities to make a good bet? Our clearvoiency?' The man shrugged.

'Do you want popcorn or not? There's people waiting behind you.'

'We want popcorn, two blue bowls, please,' Magnus answered. The man filled two blue tubs to the brim, before handing them to Alex and Magnus. 'Have fun and don't get hit!' He yelled after them, before turning to the next customer.

'Why didn't you ask for a red one and a blue one?' Alex inquired.

'I do not want to be alone in a movie theatre in hotel Valhalla. Just for safety, you know.'

Alex nodded. 'Fair point.'

They were forced to sit at the far back. It was a little too far at the back for comfort. Magnus wanted to sigh again. 'I think we might be Lucky. If they want to fire something at us, they'll aim for the middle, because that is were most people sit,' Alex said before he could do that. Magnus sat down in his chair. 'Sound logic. That makes me feel better about these seats, honestly.'

'That's why I said it,' Alex answered, while she picked a single popcorn out of the bowl. 'I am just going to start chomping down on these. The poison will probably work slowly anyway.'

After what felt like hours, the lights finally dimmed. The room got ever so slightly more quiet. On the screen, the words: 'Welcome fighters of doomsday!' Appeared. A moment later, it also boomed through the speakers, so loud that a few people fell of off their chairs (already). 'Again, welcome fighters of doomsday! Today we will be watching the cinematic classic Goldfinger!'

Alex groaned. 'I like Diamonds are forever better.'

Magnus didn't answer. It felt like there was a reason they picked Goldfinger. A very paint-cannony reason.

The movie started on the screen. The whole room watched as James Bond crawled out of the sea and placed a timebomb. Magnus thought he smelt something salty, although that could also be their popcorn. He realised it probably was not their popcorn when the time bomb went off on the screen and a few people on the right side of the theatre dropped down. Some others screamed. Magnus clutched the sides of his chair. 'I was right. Those are the rows that form the middle,' Alex whispered.

'Great,' magnus said through clenched teeth. Maybe he could get the tailor that lived on floor seventy-three to repair his soon-to-be-shredded-suit.

The film continued on. Both Magnus and Alex enjoyed it, but not as much as they could be enjoying it. Every moment, something could happen, which made it so that they couldn't relax at all. This became worse when the first gunshot was fired and an actual bullet flew through the room. It hit one of the poor residents from floor two-thousand-and-seven. Alex sunk down a little in his chair. 'Maybe we can use one of our coats for cover,' he suggested. Magnus unbuttoned his blazer. 'Maybe we can better use our own coats for cover.'

'Good point,' Alex answered, while he also unbuttoned his shirt and held it over his head. The bullets were flying through the room at this point and more people crouched down before their chairs. Next to Magnus sat a man who accidentally tipped over both his and Magnus tub of popcorn while violently dropping to the floor.

'Hey!'

'Well, you should not have put your tub at such a dangerous angle,' the man answered angrily. He threw some of the popcorn back into the tubs, without really paying attention to what popcorn he threw into which tub. Magnus angrily placed his bowl on the handheld that was between him and Alex.

They managed to survive the first gunfire. While they scrambled back into their chairs, Magnus took a handful of popcorn. 'Alright, first wave down, many more to go,' he whispered to Alex. Alex nodded, but was not fully paying attention. He saw something at the ceiling, a few rows ahead. It was too dark to see clearly, but it seemed like there was a hole forming on the ceiling.

He knew what was going to happen before it did. A blotch of golden paint dropped from the ceiling and onto the poor, poor hotel residents that were sitting under it. Alex gripped Magnus arm when the victims dropped down, now painted bright gold.

Magnus stared at the moshpit of gold in front of him. Alex let go of his arm and put some popcorn into his mouth. 'I say we look at the ceiling now and then,' he suggested. Magnus nodded.

'Honestly, I want to see the end of this film now. Let's make sure that we do not get wiped out of the room.'

Do I really have to say it again? Just do not say your wishes out loud in the divine world. The exact opposite will usually happen. Magnus ate a bit more popcorn, until he suddenly felt a jitter in his stomach. 'Al?'

'Hm?' Alex was fascinated by the screen. The scene was calm, but still engaging, allowing him to really get into it.

'Do you feel a little poisoned?'

Alex looked at him, then at their tubs. He had clearly eaten more popcorn than Magnus. 'No, actually.' Magnus instantly knew what had happened. He turned towards the guy sitting next to him. 'Say, do you feel funny?'

The guy shot him a look with which he could not hide his pain. 'No.' Magnus looked at his tub of mixed popcorn. He turned to Alex. 'Tell me how it ends. I am going to die with honour,' He told him, before standing up and walking to the exit.

Alex stared at the screen. It was on him now. He had to stay behind in the cinema and see the whole film to defend the honour of everyone on the floor. He could not get destroyed by effects that were a little too special, or specially seasoned popcorn, or an art project that was just a little too enthusiastic. He needed to see how Goldfinger ended even if it would give him weird dreams until Ragnarok.

About an hour and a half later, Alex was sitting on a golden chair that was not the chair he started out on, doused in soda and popcorn and with a suit that was more than a little destroyed, but he was still there. The credits were rolling. He knew how Goldfinger ended - he had succeeded.

Or so he thought. When it was time to get out of the theatre, by every way to exit stood a man with a paper and a pen. When Alex looked up, he could even see a few people hanging from the holes in the ceiling that the paint fell through. With a deep sigh he took a paper and a pen.

'What is this? High school? Why must we fill out a test about the movie!?' Someone yelled. Alex took a deep breath. It was on.

As good as ghostly possible, he made the test, remembering what colour Bonds' tie was in scene ten, what kind of trees were in the background and just remembering what the name of the bad guy was. While standing in line to give it back to the person by the door, he peeked on the paper of the person behind him. The girl pushed his head backwards. 'Look away, dork!' Alex sniffed. Someone was going to be literally bear-hugged during the Friday evening brawl for not letting her lightly peek.

The man by the entrance quickly scanned Alex' answers. Than again. And again. Eventually, he pointed his finger at the paper, at the last question: 'What was the name of the bad guy?'

'What's that?'

'It says Goldfinger. Now do not go around pretending like that is not his name, because it absolutely is.'

'It says goldfinges on here.' Alex stared at the paper. Alright, if you really wanted to, you could see the last letter as an S instead of an R. If you squinted and looked from the top of the hotel. 'You know exactly what I mean,' Alex bit in the mans' direction.

'I do not.' He pushed a button and Alex fell through a hole in the ground like in an old cartoon. In the back, he heard a crappy laughtrack. 'That's just annoying!' He muttered, while he was slowly sent back to his room.

When he woke up, he smelled something delicious. Magnus was standing in the room, with two plates with baked food. 'Hey. I got a copy of Skyfall.' Alex grinned widely while looking at the ceiling. 'Awesome. Goldfinger was boring anyway. You missed nothing,' he said, while snatching a plate of grilled goat-who's-name-he-forgot-once-again and cuddling up to finally get a relaxed movie evening.


	14. Easter To The Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Easter got a little christianised, even in Hotel Valhalla, but that is because they like the eggs.

'Either this is going to be one massive battle, or some of the eggs are going to be bombs, or both,' Mallory predicted.

'I say it is a battle-royale-style-egg hunt,' T.J. mused.

'And I have a sister who hid the eggs and proceeded to let her stuff lay on the floor,' Alex said with a huge grin.

'Can we, as your roommates, know what that it means?' Mallory asked. She did not expect Alex to do so and she was right.

'Of course not! I need to get all of the nougat eggs myself!'

'There are nougat eggs?' Halfborn asked, suddenly paying attention.

Alex gave him the side eye. 'No.'

Halfborn smirked. He didn't care what was in that arena, all that mattered was that he found more nougat eggs than Alex.

Almost the every hotel resident stood by the big arena, ready to get themselves some eggs. The only person who did not come was Mrs. Dawly, a woman who had once sworn to never celebrate easter ever and she was not going to give up now just because there might be some sparkly, exploding nougat eggs.

In front of the entrance of the arena was a platform. Magnus pursed his lips. 'There is no microphone,' He commented. Alex rolled her eyes.

'Fool. They probably have a turbo-megaphone loud enough to make the jotuns deaf. For what do they need microphones?'

Magnus opened his mouth to rebuttal that they always had a microphone, but at that moment Odin appeared to demonstrate that Alex was right. He was holding a huge turbo-megaphone. 'Hello fighters of Doomsday! I...' Magnus wanted to hear the rest Odin said, but that was impossible. The sound that came out of the megaphone made him temporarily deaf. He assumed Odin had said something about the hunt being on when everyone sped into the arena, stabbing people left and right and pushing everyone and everything of its place in order to find an egg.

Magnus immediately lost all of his friends in the chaos, except for Halfborn. 'Halfborn!' the half-troll turned around and picked Magnus of off the floor, all while still running. 'Did you hear anything Odin said?' magnus asked him. Halfborn slowly nodded. 'I believe he mentioned a lot of surprises, not only in the eggs, but also in the surroundings and something about gold in one of the eggs, but snakes in another...' He shrugged, which almost crushed Magnus.

'That is unusually little information for Odin,' Magnus commented.

'I know, but maybe Freya was secretly holding him back, or something. It is her magic day, she can do what she wants.'

'I hope that isn't how anything works.'

'Too bad, it probably is.'

They reached a part of the arena that was less crowded. Halfborn put Magnus onto the ground. 'Alright. I say we stick together for the time being. To look out for eggs filled with newt eyes and of course for eggs filled with nougat.'

'If they really exist and Alex knows where they are, you can say for sure that Alex will find and eat them all.'

Halfborns' expression darkened. 'No.' He picked Magnus up again. 'Use your magic sense of smell, beantown. Where are the nougat eggs?'

'I do not have a magic sense of smell!'

'Develop one, then!' Magnus rolled his eyes, until his gaze suddenly fell onto a neon green egg, which was laying next to a small group of trees.

'There is an egg over there. I cannot tell you what is in it, thoooooowuh!' He yelled when being dropped onto the floor, while Halfborn ran over to the egg. 'It could be a bomb!' Magnus screeched, while crawling away from the egg.

Too late. Well, it wasn't a bomb exactly. When Halfborn opened the egg, a little piece of pink cloth dropped out. Within seconds, it grew until it was a big pink cube that crushed halfborn against the trees.

Magnus jumped up to help. He tried pushing the pink cube away, which caused it to start pushing him against the ground. Halfborn tried to do the same thing as Magnus. When it was pushed from from multiple sides, the pink deathcube slowly dissolved back into pink fabric.

The two boys did not now how quickly they needed to get away. 'Alright. Lesson learned. We do not just open random eggs!'

'That means we cannot open any eggs! This is just another form of betting!'

'In hotel Valhalla? What a surprise. Although I think there must be some way to identify what is in which egg.'

'Like what?'

'I don't know! Colour? Texture?'

Meanwhile, Alex was finding eggs filled with nougat, hazelnut fudge and money left and right. There was indeed a way to find out what was in which egg. That being having a sister who lets her stuff, like maps with which egg needed to be where, laying around in her room. She grinned widely while she opened a new egg. The aroma of hazelnut filling alone was almost enough to kill her.

The other thing that was almost enough to kill her was the man who jumped out of the bushes to ambush her. Alex growled and changed into a cat. She clawed the man in the face and jumped into a tree, in order to hiss at him. The man screamed. 'Seriously!? A cat? That is how serious you think this threat is?'

Alex changed back. 'I need to spare my energy, loser!' she yelled, while slowly getting her garotte out of her pocket.

'Oh wow, getting real with the insults, huh?'

Alex jumped out of the tree, with the garotte in her hands. The thin string sliced straight through the dudes neck. He immediately disappeared to his room. A colourful Rainbow of eggs dropped out of his pockets. Alex grinned. 'Thanks, my dude,' she whispered to the spirit of the currently regenerating foe. Alex looked at all the eggs and suddenly realised there was a new problem: She couldn't possibly carry them all!

She kept grinning until all of her delicious nougat eggs suddenly started shaking. She reacted quick, but it was still too slow - all of the eggs around her exploded within a nanosecond. It seemed that she, indeed, could not carry them al. When she woke up, a few hours later, there was only one egg still on her bed. It did not smell like nougat, or like anything tasty at all. Slowly, she opened it. There was a little piece of paper in it, with the words: 'You shouldn't have taken more than you can chew! Happy easter!

'How is it so awfully quiet here?' Mallory whined. T.J. shrugged

'Well, I do not see any eggs either, so maybe the people who came before us raided the place.'

Mallory sighed deeply and dramatically. 'Let's just turn around, let's actually find somebody!'

'Why? To steal their eggs?'

'Exactly!'

T.J. rolled his eyes. 'Why did I even bother to ask?'

They walked just slightly further, until they reached the end of the forest. A wide valley spread out before them. The valley was nothing but grass and blue skies, which might sound peaceful, but it made both einherjar feel incredibly uncomfortable. 'Alright. Let's go find someone,' T.J. muttered, maybe an octave higher than usual. Mallory nodded.

'Yes, lets.' They turned around, only to see even more grass and blue skies.

'By the norns, there really is just sky, grass and sun!' T.J. yelled, sounding slightly panicked.

'I don't even see dirt...' Mallory looked a little white around her nose. 'Maybe we should just keep walking?'

'Maybe we should stay here. So that someone can find us.'

'Who will find us!? And will that even be good?'

'I don't know, maybe more lost people? And if they kill us we'll at least go back to the hotel!'

While Alex was regenerating and Mallory and T.J. were lost in no-one's land, Halfborn and Magnus were actually going strong. They had found out that the eggs would explode when you took too many, so they made sure they did not go over the limit. They had also realised that every plastic egg had a pattern on it. They had safely opened a few, so that they now knew which eggs were worth the most and which they should leave behind. While the Arena was becoming less populated, their chances of winning were ever increasing.

Mallory stared at the sun above her. 'Alright. Maybe this grass is edible. Maybe life could be good for us.'

T.J. screamed into the abyss. 'No!' He turned to Mallory. 'I see no choice. We need to regenerate ourselves.'

'That means we lose!'

'If losing means we aren't stuck in no-mans' land forever, fine!

'That does not sound like a true Einherjar, T.J.!'

'Who actually...'

They heard soft clapping behind them. 'Children, children, calm.' They turned around. Behind them stood a gorgeous and radiant woman - the goddess Freya in person.

She touched her upper lip. 'Well, Children... I guess you could be thousands of years old, even if you clearly do not look it.' She shrugged. 'Anyway, you'll need to leave. I brought painless poison. The regenerating process will be accelerated as well!' She pulled out two purple bottles.

T.J. grabbed one and emptied it before the goddess could blink. Mallory angrily crossed her arms. 'I am not giving up.'

'There is no choice. This is an endless meadow. You shall be stuck here forever. No matter how far you run or walk it will continue. And you cannot starve or die from exhaustion either.'

Mallory shrugged. 'I'll live.'

'Yeah, that is the issue.' Freya put the poison next to Mallory. 'Just take it when you change your mind.'

'I won't.' Freya disappeared without saying another word.

That evening, Magnus and Halfborn marched onto floor nineteen, loaded with easter eggs. 'We got the grand prize, dear floormates!' They announced.

Alex slowly waddled out of her room. 'Good for you.' T.J. jumped around the corner.

'What! You got the golden egg?'

Magnus shrugged. 'Don't think so.'

'Now let us show you our loot,' Halfborn said with a huge grin. 'You two can do the same... oh wait!' Alex almost threw him out the window, but she held back.

Magnus laid out a few eggs. 'Alright. We think there is a pattern on these eggs that tell what is inside...'

Alex snickered. 'You really believe that? The slip of paper I found may not have told me you cannot pick up too many eggs at once, but it did say that they found one doozy of a distraction mechanism!

Magnus and Halfborn stared at their eggs. 'Whatever,' Halfborn murmured. Magnus opened one of the eggs, which was filled with fudge. The second egg had hundred Kröner in it (about ten dollars) - both regular easter egg loot. Then Halfborn opened the third egg. It was filled with nothing but the most gross scent Magnus had ever smelled. Halfborn quickly pushed the cap back onto the egg, but it did not help. The scent spread throughout the hallway.

'Maybe it is less horrible in one of the rooms,' Alex mumbeld. They shuffled into Magnus room, in which the scent was indeed more bearable.

With caution, T.J. picked up an egg. It was filled with caramel. Alex picked out a pink egg. She opened it for just a small bit, only to immediately almost vomit.

Norns, I think that egg is filled with...' She gestured above her stomach, at the height of her intestines.

'Throw it out!' Magnus yelled, a few octaves higher than usual. Alex jumped up, ran to the wall, slid open the window and threw it into the depth below. 'Who in Asgard comes up with this childish prank?'

'My bet is on Thor,' Halfborn mused. Magnus shook his head.

'I say one of the death gods. Decay and everything,' he suggested. T.J. sighed deeply.

'I do not want to know.'

Alex grabbed another egg, a green one. She opened it a miniscule bit, fearful for what might come. The painful expression quickly changed into cheer when she noticed that it smelled like nougat. 'Well! That's great!'

Halfborn tried to pull it out of her hand, but Alex changed into a gull and flew to the ceiling. She kawed something, quite possibly 'mine.'

'I found that!' Halfborn bellowed. Alex laughed a gullish laugh, before flying out the window. Magnus patted Halfborns' shoulder. 'Come, come. We have about twenty more eggs to open. There should be at least one filled with nougat.'

There was no more nougat, but still a lot of other candy galore, with some money (And only three more nasty surprises, which is not a bad score, except that Magnus would probably have to sleep in someone else's room, what with the angry sea lions that were flopping around his and all that). While they were splitting the candy in T.J.'s room, they heard a knock at the door. Mallory wandered into the room a moment later. T.J. folded his arms before his chest.

'I see you opted for the poison after all?' Mallory made an ugly face at him.

'Is there some caramel left?' she inquired. She looked at all the eggs.

'No,' Halfborn said, while stuffing the last bit of caramel into his mouth.

Before anything else could happen, T.J. and Magnus booked it out of the room, each with an arm filled with eggs. 'I think I still have an easter movie somewhere,' T.J. sighed. Magnus looked over his shoulder.

'That sounds like a great idea. We have to eat quite a lot of candy after all, before everyone else steals it!' T.J. grinned.

Odin looked at the shiny egg on top of his desk. Silly einherjar. like he would ever give it away! He just wondered how they figured out that he had it. Outside the window stood a gull, which Odin had not yet seen. It might have been the heat, but for a moment it seemed like it's beady eyes lit up, as if it had just thought off a brilliant plan to steal Odin's precious egg. It was gone a moment later, but at that moment there was the ominous buzz of a fly...


	15. Best Friends With Gods? Unheard Off!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this story for my one-shot book, but I wanted to maybe bring Piper into the To-The-Death stories, so I decided to publish it here too!

Piper strolled through New York city, alone. She had just gotten back from a quick quest. She knew she should be calling Chiron so he could pick her up, but she didn't feel like it. She felt like taking a walk on her own, so she could sort her thoughts for a bit, and find something to eat along the way. She peeked at the shop windows, noticed there was a brand new Limited edition mascara - Drew would be after that soon - eyed the new releases in a book shop, slowly turned around and noticed a few dracaena standing outside a Taco bell across the street.

For a few seconds, Piper felt torn - should she do something about it? Eventually her morals won it from her desire to have a lazy afternoon. She put her hand onto Katropris while walking to the nearest traffic light.

The dracaena had entered the Taco bell when Piper had just crossed the street. She followed them into the Taco Bell. She noticed that the dracanea were trying to hide in the corner of the shop. Piper assumed the mist made them look like just three random old ladies, something nobody in New York (or in any other place for that matter) would pay attention to.

Piper shuffled her way to the end of the queue. She could feel one of the dracaena staring at her. She knew she had been recognised. There were three people in front of her. She heard the dracaena getting closer. Slowly, she got Katropris out. She held it in the right position.

As soon as she felt a slimy hand on her shoulder, she spun around on her toes and stabbed the dracaena right between the eyes. The monster dissappeared in a cloud of dust. Her sisters jumped up and hissed at Piper, who backed away a little. Suddenly, she felt a human hand on her shoulder. 'Help! Stop! This girl is attacking these older ladies!' The dracaena patted their dresses, trying to act like weak older women. Piper pulled her shoulder out of the strangers' grasp. She pushed a few people away and charged towards the other two dracaena.

She was stopped by a man, who picked her up from the floor and held her in a harsh grasp. 'Call the police!' Piper heard someone yell. Oh no. She turned towards the man. 'Hey, won't you let me go? I mean, I was the one who was being attacked...' she softly charmspoke. The man put her back on the floor. 'Please, get a little farther away...' Piper mused. The people back away, giving Piper some space to think and plan her next move.

She twirled around and launched another attack at the dracaena. Sadly, she missed, but she did give one of the dracaena the chance to get a hold of her and put her pointy fingernails closer to Pipers' face than the daughter of Aphrodite liked.

Until the monster just... disappeared. Piper dropped to the floor. She blinked. A tall man covered in a cloak was standing in the restaurant. He waved his hands. Piper felt her muscles relax. She shook her head. The cloaked man reached for her hand and helped her to her feet. '...Thanks,' Piper muttered. The man nodded and smiled. He turned around, grabbed the muscled man by his shoulder, pushed him back and pulled a gun from his jacket.

Pipers' mouth fell open. The Girl behind the counter took a few steps back. The cloaked man snapped his fingers. The muscled man was immediately gone.

The cloaked person turned around to the cashier. 'Two taco supreme menu's, please, one vegetarian,' He asked her. Nobody complained about him skipping the line. The cashier rang the order up and yelled something over her shoulder at the people in the kitchen. She kept her eyes on the stranger the whole time.

Piper had had enough. The dracaena were defeated, the people didn't seem to remember them, but she wasn't sure about whether they remembered that they wanted to hand her over to the police. She got up off of the floor and slowly backed out of the restaurant. She could get something to eat somewhere else. It was New York, there was probably a McDonalds or Starbucks right around the corner. 

'Hey!' She heard behind her, when she was a few feet outside of the Taco Bell. She looked over her shoulder. The cloaked man stood by the entrance, with the two taco supreme Menu's. He was looking at her. 'You were the girl fighting the Dranaeca's, right?'

Piper first made sure that she could run before she answered. She gave the man a nod. 'Yes, that was me.' The man pointed to one of his Taco Supreme Menu's. 'I didn't order these just for myself, you know. Demigods need to eat, otherwise you won't have enough energy for monsters coming at you.'

Piper tried to make a assumption about his character. As a daughter of Aphrodite, she wasn't bad it, but people are complicated and sometimes you ended up trusting or distrusting the wrong person. Yet, the guy had destroyed the dracaena, gotten the evil man that tried to strangle her to leave and was offering her a meal with some pretty sound advice she had also heard from Chiron. She decided that she might as well trust him. She was so close to both Camp Half-blood and Olympus that things could not go too wrong.

'... Alright.' She took a few steps forward and took one of the menus out of his hands. 'Thanks.' She opened the box. She took a moment to take in the delicious smell of fresh tacos. 'Hey, these are actually vegetarian. I thought that was impossible, and that the cashier just didn't complain after everything that happened. The man shrugged.

'Not much is impossible to me.' Piper blinked.

'Well... Thanks,' she said, before taking a bite.

While she was focused on her food, the man got a Phone out of his pocket. He swiped to the camera, but instead of taking a photo of something, he swiped further. His screen turned into a Rainbow, which started to leak out of the Phone, until it formed a steady bridge rising above the clouds. Heimdal put one foot onto the Bifrost, hoping to disappear before Piper noticed him.

Piper decided to look up at the stranger for a split second. She almost dropped her taco onto the floor. 'Wait! You are... how... why... did you help?' Heimdal looked over, grabbed her hand and pulled her onto the bridge, before any mortal could notice what was happening.

'It is boring on here, alright? Technically, I don't have to watch out for Ragnarok until it is winter in Midgard for three years straight. Until that, I can go down to any realm I want to do whatever I want, which is often stop criminals at fast food restaurants so that the cashier gives me free food. And I helped you because I could.' Piper took another bite of taco.

'Seems fair... I guess. Except that... eh...' piper tilted her head slightly, wondering how she could say in a nice way that gods generally don't help mortals out a lot much less share food with demigods.

'Most gods don't do that? I just did.' Heimdal whipped his Phone out of his pocket and started scrolling on it. Piper took another bite of taco.

They reached a t-junction, with one part leading to hotel Valhalla and the other leading to Asgard. Heimdals' stuff was laying around in front of it. 'You just let it lay out in the open like this?' Piper asked.

Heimdal shrugged. 'Whether I take it along or I let lay around here, the residents from Hotel Valhalla will steal it for truth or dare anyway.' Piper ate the last bit of her taco.

'They actually do that?'

'Don't act like you Greeks don't steal stuff from Dionysus when he isn't looking.' Piper shrugged slowly, but didn't say anything. She softly snickered.

Heimdall picked up his sword. 'Now. I'll continue standing around here now.' Piper looked at the empty box in her hands. 'That sounds... pretty bland.'

'It is bland until I see someone attack the same McDonalds' in North Dakota again.' He pointed at a spot in America. There was a small McDonalds', laying just outside of a small town.

'That sounds like they know you over there by now.'

'They do.'

Piper laughed. 'How did you know how I was vegetarian, by the way?' She asked. She didn't even noticed that she was talking to the god the way she would have been talking to her siblings in the Aphrodite cabin.

'Freya told me. That one time you barged in here it left quite the impact. I think Freya might want you in Folkvangerm eventually.'

'Alrightie then.' Piper looked down at Midgard. 'How come that you can see everything in such detail? I thought everything would be smaller.' Heimdal walked up to her. Together, they looked at Beijing, which was buzzing with people and vehicles. 'The air works like a magnifying glass.'

'Fancy!' Piper put the box next to her on the floor. 'To be honest, this job doesn't even sound that bad. I mean, you can just see the ever changing world each day and get paid for it! What could be better? I don't think...'

While Piper was rambling on on the bifrost, Jason, Percy and Will were sitting in the dining hall, waiting for both her and Nico to finally return from their respective quests. Jason stood up, walked a few steps, and proceeded to sit down again. He sniffed. 'Eh... they are surely taking their time, aren't they?'

Percy slowly nodded. 'A little too much time. Does Nico Always take so long?' Percy looked over at Will, who was focused on sewing a hole in his camp half-blood shirt. 'Huh? Oh, yeah. Sometimes he ends up in these weird situations. It wouldn't surprise me if he walked into the infirmary at two A.M. and told me he fought a Dragon.'

'Well, you might be alright if your SO missing, but Piper never takes this long!' Jason exclaimed. A few girls looked over from the docks. Percy stood up. 'I'll go get Chiron. Maybe he has heard something?' Will and Jason looked at each other. At least it was worth a shot...

'As you see, I like to do some home decorating!' Danu, celtic goddess, told Nico, who was drinking a nice cup of tea and not at all bothered by the thought that there might be people waiting for him. 'I think it is great,' He said. 'It is even better than last time I visited the United Kingdom!' Nico took a deep breath.

'However, I will have to leave soon. There are some things that still need to be done.' Danu smiled and nodded. 'Of course, of course.' She took the tea cup out of his hands. 'Glad you could come. Hope to see you soon!' She said.

'Me too!' Nico yelled over his shoulder, while shadow travelling away to a new place.

He should have paid more attention to what new place. The next thing Nico new, he was in hotel Valhalla, in a room where some people had decided to play knife tennis (Do you not know what that is? Lucky you. You still want to know? Just imagine regular tennis, but replace the balls with knives). Nico ducked. A knife soared over his head. On hands and knees, Nico crawled out of the room.

Only to immediately enter a room where people were making Hot Pockets filled with lava (For no reason whatsoever, except that Odin said it was never allowed and therefore they had to do it). Nico jumped up and ran through the room, which luckily lead to the main hall.

He got out before Helgi, the hotel manager, could really notice he had been there in first place. Nico jolted onto the bifrost, thinking of excuses he could use to trick Heimdal into thinking he totally had the right to be there. He didn't expect the protector of Asgard to be enjoying some nacho's while Piper Mclean was telling a story.

'... Piper? What are you doing here?'

Piper looked up. 'Neeks! Is something wrong?'

'No. Yet, I thought other demigods didn't socialize with gods.'

'I wasn't planning to,' Piper said, shrugging. Heimdal looked at Nico.

'No, you aren't allowed to walk on the Bifrost because it is the only way you'll get your chocolate to camp half-blood before it melts,' he said. Nico pouted. He had only used that excuse once!

'I need to walk on the Bifrost in order to... deliver a newspaper.'

'No, better excuse,' Piper answered.

'What do you know?' Nico mouthed off at her.

'She's right, I need a better excuse, otherwise I'll have to ban you from the Bifrost forever,' Heimdal said, while standing up. 'I am getting fed up with your excuses!' Nico smiled.

'Eh... yeah, yeah, I, eh...'

'You accidently ended up here because you shadow travelled the wrong way, didn't you?' Piper asked. Nico gave her a sour look. '...yeah.' Heimdal gave him a stern look in return.

'You can pass through this time, but don't let me see you here again!' He told Nico. Nico smiled sarcastically.   
'Yeah, thanks, lord.'

Piper put his arm around his shoulders. 'I should be leaving too.' She bowed her head towards Heimdal. 'Thanks for the food.'

The god pushed a pass into her hand. 'Here. that way you can enter the bifrost whenever you want.' Pipers' eyes went big.

'...Alright, thanks, lord,' She said, too surprised to think of something better.

Heimdal smiled at her, before turning his eyes back to Midgard. Piper pulled Nico along. 'Come.'

'What the heck did you do today?'

'I decided to make some immortal friends as well,' Piper answered. 'So you are not alone.'

'You so did not decide that and instead it just happened!' Nico said back.

Piper nodded. 'You're right, but does it really matter? Come, we need to go to camp!' Nico sighed deeply. He walked along with Piper, back to camp Half-blood.

They walked into the dining pavilion, hoping there was still a small bit of food left. They didn't find any food. What they did find was their significant others (And also Percy) still sitting in the pavilion, wondering when they were finally getting back.

'Piper!' Jason was the first one to spot them. He ran up to his girlfriend and squashed her in a bear hug. 'Gods! Where were you two? Did you get lost on a new quest!?' Piper hugged Jason back, while trying to shake her head.   
'No. We made some friends in heaven.' Jason stared at her.

'...What?'

'What I said.' Jason stared at her. Will put away his sewing work.

'You'll get used to it, Jason,' He muttered, before grabbing Nico's hand and pulling him along.

Percy stood by the side. 'Alright, I guess that quest Chiron told us to do will have to wait until tomorrow?' He asked to the void.


	16. Dancing To The Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elegance! Grande ballrooms! Vikings!

'Say, Alex, did they specify what kind of dancing we are going to do?' Magnus asked. Alex shrugged.

'No, I don't think so. I hope it is not Swing dancing, because that sounds like the type of dance where one dies from embarrassment before you die of something legitimate.' Magnus shrugged.

'Yeah, you're right, I think.'

They both shot a prayer to the gods before entering the club. There were already a lot of people trying to move their feet in a graceful matter. Alex carefully listened to the music. 'Hm. I know it is not swing music, but I do not know what else it is. '

While trying to figure it out, the music faded. When it came back, it was something completely different. When he recognised it, Magnus already felt like screaming. 'Wait, that's a tango! How are we supposed to be properly dancing a Tango? We haven't even...'

'Hey! Blondie and Greenie in the corner! Try something, at least! Greenie, hand around his waist... blondie, hand around her shoulder...' Magnus decided that it was dance or die now. He listened to who he supposed was the dance teacher and put his hand around Alex' shoulder.

It was difficult, but they managed to move around a little in a not completely un-elegant way. Luckily, the music changed to a tune better suited for waltzing a few minutes later.

Waltzing wasn't very difficult. While he was slowly leading Alex around, Magnus noticed that a group of einherjar looking like actual vikings walked into the club.

'What are they doing here? They don't exactly look like the dancing type!'

'You are stepping on my foot. And I don't know or really care, but we might need to stay far away from them. I have seen cute looking girls with knives hidden in their buttons and heels around here. If they can do things like that, I do not want to find out what these guys do.'

The next tune was the Charleston. Alex and Magnus decided that that was the perfect moment to take a break, even though they had only been dancing for about fifteen minutes.

They decided to get a drink at a small bar that was probably set up to give the dancers the feeling that this was an actual club and not a battleground. Magnus took a sip of his orange juice. 'I am hoping for something more modern next.' Alex nodded.

'Would be nice. Although I think we are going to get an ancient Scandinavian dance.'

'That is something I do not even want to think about!'

Alex snickered. 'Well, you'll have to when...'

'Hey! Why are you two not dancing!?' In front of the two einherjar appeared a woman in a complete flapper outfit. 'You cannot pass up dancing the Charleston for nothing!'

Alex took a sip of her pomegranate juice. 'I seem to be perfectly capable of it.' The woman kept looking at Magnus and Alex.

'No, you are not.' Slowly, Alex put her pomegranate juice down on the bar. She felt a weird tingle in her stomach. Like she could feel the music oozing through her. Her legs had to react, they simply had to. She started shuffling her legs and moving her arms, suddenly being able to do a perfect Charleston.

Magnus followed quickly after her. They both felt dazed, but could still tell that the Charleston girl must have put a spell on them, so that they must move.

'How long do you think this will last?' Alex said through clenched teeth. She had trouble relaxing her jaw - she had to smile and could just produce the sounds. Magnus tried shaking his head, only to find out he couldn't. 'Either until the song is over or until we die!' he gasped.

'The bees knees!' Alex answered, out loud this time, but she really wished she hadn't.

The song seemed to last an eon (Maybe it did), but eventually the sound faded. Alex felt the muscles in her legs and face relax. She and Magnus slowly stumbled to the bar. Their juices were still on it, but neither of them felt like drinking it - who knows what kind of weird junk somebody put in. The bartender saw it. In an act of kindness that must have made her source of kindness run dry for the next decade, she offered them two new juices, which Alex and Magnus happily accepted.

A slow number followed the Charleston music. 'Alright, so at least we miss nothing exciting by taking a break,' Alex sighed.

Magnus looked at his watch. 'I don't even know how late it is anymore. Do you want to go on?'

Alex nodded determinedly. 'I will show this room my breakdance skills even if it will kill me!'

'Oh, it is most definitely going to kill us. I just hope it will after we showed them our skills!'

Alex grabbed Magnus hand and held both his and hers in the air, causing Magnus' drink to spill slightly. 'Now that is the spirit! Now that we have had our warmup, lets knock their socks off!'

They had to wait three more very slow, boring songs until they could knock people's socks off. Yet, when the long awaited hip hop number finally came, they managed to do it literally. While getting down on the ground, Alex fell against someone's legs and accidently hooked her finger into their socks. The person was wearing short heels, without a strap over the instep, so both the sock and the heel came straight off. The person turned towards Alex, who noticed her face was dangerously close to the other heel. She quickly jumped up and ran away, before the person could make the obvious next move.

Tired, they walked back to the bar. 'We didn't even die! I say we leave now before we push our luck too far!' Alex exclaimed.

Magnus wanted to nod, but then the music slowly changed. While the rhythm did, so did the people in the room. Magnus recognised the tones as just the thing he feared: Ancient viking beats. The tall viking guys, who had just been waiting in the back of the club, now formed a line. There was no choice - not dancing an ancient einherjar dance meant that you were insulting the gods right to their faces.

They joined the line, having the strange feeling that something was going to go wrong in a very hotel Valhalla like way. The music seemed louder than before and the rhythm was almost more compelling than the Charleston. The dance itself was not very difficult at all. The issue was that most hotel residents prefered to dance it with their weapons out, which you should definitely not try at home. Magnus certainly wished he didn't, because it kinda hurt when they made the first turn and the person in front of him stabbed him right in the stomach. 'Good luck, Alex,' He yelled, before evaporating, hoping someone would save him some desert from the dinner that night.

Alex held on tight. She could not get out her own garotte, as that would mean letting go of the people she was dancing with. She just had to skip right out of the way of the weapons everywhere.

She managed to do it, for some time, glad to find out it got easier the longer she danced - more people disappeared, after all. She grinned when the music died down. Great, she was done, now she just had to...

She felt like screaming when another viking song came on, even louder than last time. She got her garotte out, even though she still wasn't able to do a lot with it.

Her annoyance turned to suspicion when the song after that was another viking dance. She stumbled back onto her feet.

'Hey! Tiny person! Get onto your feet!' A tall man yelled from a row of dancers.

'Have some patience!' Alex screamed back.

'The gods will not be patient. I am doing nothing but protecting you.' Alex grinded her teeth, but she entered the row.

This dance was stampier than the one that came before it. Alex had to watch out, otherwise she would get stomped on by one of the tall, heavy, probably real vikings she was now standing in between.

After almost being squashed for the millionth time, Alex decided to pull out the ultimate weapon. Her mother might not have been a great person, but at least she gave her child the ability to turn into a grizzly bear. With her arms still around two brick walls of humans, she changed into a big she-bear. The guy on her left screamed and jumped out of the row. Without looking back, he ran away from the dance floor. The boy on the right stayed in the row, but Alex could feel that his heartbeat and breathing had gotten quicker.

Man, why had she not thought of this earlier? Dancing as a bear was one of the most liberating experiences ever. Nobody got to close, no-one stepped on her toes, when he felt a sudden gender change his clothes did not give him dysphoria. He even felt a little saddened when the song came to an end. The next song was something peppy. He decided it was finally time to leave.

That did not mean he changed back into a human. The people had a lot more respect for personal space when you were a bear, so Alex decided that it was way easier to just stay like that until he reached the right floor.

With a yawn, he stepped out of the elevator (Which he did not have to share with someone who smelled like cheese or gum for once). T.J. Just came out into the hallway when Alex made his way to his room. He screamed and jumped back in, which caused Halfborn to peek out of the door. He dropped to the floor from laughter. 'That must have been one helheim of a dance party!' Alex rolled his eyes, while strolling into his room.

After a quick clothing change, he walked into Magnus room. 'I knocked my own socks off,' he mentioned when he saw Magnus was already awake from having been gone. Magnus looked up. 'Did you shapeshift?' Alex nodded with a huge grin.

'I did.'

'I want to hear everything about it - but over dinner. I'm starving. Lets go.'


	17. Kart Racing To The death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why did no-one use the bifrost as a kart track before?

'I don't understand why we did not come up with this sooner!' Alex let her engine roar. Magnus pumped the gas a few times, realising they weren't allowed to go yet. 'It was only a matter of time,' he yelled back, over the loud noise of an uncounteble amount of karts.   
Piper climbed onto a little podium. 'Welcome einhirjar! I am so honoured to be jurying the first ever kart-race on the bifrost, because apparently you guys did not get traumatized by the rainbow road in Mario kart enough!'   
Heimdal stepped next to her onto the podium. 'To make it extra thrilling, only about a hundred metres of road will actually exist at any given time, making it so that you cannot drive too slow or too fast!'  
Magnus strenghtend the grip on his steering wheel. This was going to be a bumpy ride - and he felt ready.   
Piper picked up a flag from the podium. 'Because all of you are kind of crazy, which is fine, don't get me wrong, there are not that many rules really. So...' She put the flag into the air. 'GO!'  
Magnus pushed on the gaspedal, speeding ahead as quickly as possible. A few people immediately dropped of the Bifrost, which put them back in their starting spot. Magnus made his way through the tumult of other kartracers, so that he was almost at the top. Almost - someone from floor one-hundred was just ahead of him.   
He tried to speed past the other resident, but instead of going to the top, at least six other people drove past him at speeds that would have been illegal in any other place.   
There was only one thing left to do: Driving even quicker as to overcome them again. Magnus passed the three hundred kilometres per hour, which he immediately regretted when he dropped right of the one-hundred meter of available road.   
Alex was driving at a more sensible (Note how I wrote 'more sensible,' not 'sensible') speed, one that at least allowed her to not fall off the road immediately. Yet, that was not correct either, because after about two minutes Heimdal decided that a road with some turns and stops and bumps was not fancy enough and that they needed a looping, right now, not slightly later in the race when everyone got more into it. Alex did not reach the right speed in time and fell off into the depths of nowhere as well.   
When Magnus respawned, he immediately took up speed again to take the looping. After that he decided to be smarter about it by slightly slowing down. From the corner of his eye, he thought he could see Piper cheering and jumping around, but he could not be sure - he needed to focus on the road ahead.   
This is not so much a road as it is a hole with still some road in it, Alex thought while dodging holes left and right and falling down so many times the hundred metre line came dangerously close. She sighed when she finally rolled out of the zone, only to almost choke on her breath when the road became rocky. And with rocky, I mean that literal mountains grew out of Bifrost. Alex screamed. Why are they even worried about Ragnarok when Heimdal can just turn his road into a giant death trap? She thought. One step onto this thing and everyone drops into the grand nothing!  
Magnus drove through the loopings, getting dangerously used to it. So used that when the looping was just a tad off, he flew right of the Bifrost. Alright, little slower, he thought. The next looping was a little wider, so that he was going to slow. The next one, he needed to go quicker again. While yelling at the top of his lungs, he drove straight into a hole.

'The holes might be a little mean,' Piper suggested to Heimdal. Heimdal grinned.   
'Are they? I once knew someone who made fiery waterfalls run down the Bifrost!' Piper raised an eyebrow. 'Weird. As far as my knowledge goes, the only one controlling the bifrost is you.'   
Heimdal shrugged, his eyes shining. 'I almost forgot!' Piper softly punched his arm.  
'Guess gods will try stuff no matter the religion!' Heimdal grinned at her, before snapping his fingers.

Alex screeched when the road opened before her very eyes. The hole was quickly filled up with boiling lava. She looked up at the place she believes Piper and Heimdal should be. 'Is this fún to you?' She yelled into the void, before flying right over the piping hot lake (Just hot enough for a nice cup of Valhalla tea, actually).   
Her screaming changed into cheering. 'You know what, this is fun to mé!' She yelled, while putting her hands in the air. That was a slightly less good idea, as she lost her balance and dropped out of the kart, into the lava.  
Magnus saw it happening while driving past the lava lake. He was not going to try jumping over - he did not trust that the road was still intact on the other end.   
Someone was on his tail, he could feel it. Even though it was the only thing that could have possibly happened, he was still surprised when the person behind him bumped into him. He swayed towards the lava, but managed to pull away just in time. He hit the gas pedal and sped off. The person behind him quickly followed suit.   
They passed the lava lake without so much as burned clothes, but the person kept chasing Magnus down. He looked over his shoulder - oh, he wanted to play it like that. Then it would be like that. Magnus veered dangerously towards the side of the Rainbow road, thinking the person would follow him. When he peeked over his shoulder, he noticed that the person was driving ahead now. Feeling betrayed, Magnus went over the side of the road. How dared that person not fall into his trap?  
Piper took a sip of water. 'The first ones are getting close to the finish line,' she mentioned. Heimdall shrugged. 'Oh, Piper. That even you fall into that trap.' Piper narrowed her eyes. Ah, indeed. It was a finish made of cardboard, not the real thing. The real finish was at least threehundred metres ahead.   
Alex saw the finish line. While cheering loudly, she drove under the arch. She let go of the gas pedal, more than ready to stop and be brought back to her room. Yet, nothing happened. She looked around. The other people looked confused as well. Did they have to do two laps? No, right? The road was gone!  
Someone growled and pushed the gas pedal. Alex did not care whether it was smart or not, she immediately followed suit. As if the norns where on her heels, she sped further. With only mild annoyance, she crossed the actual finish. The gas pedal and brake stopped working. With a deep sigh, she put her arms behind her head. Alright, now she would probably receive something incredebily dumb for finishing as one of the first people, after that she could go to her room, she left some chocolate over there... she closed her eyes for a few seconds.   
Bad call. A few moments later, she got the feeling like she was in a rollercoaster. She opened her eyes and noticed she was plummeting towards mitgard. She screamed loudly, until the world went black.

She woke up in her own bed. 'What kind of price is that!?' She yelled to the ceiling, knowing nobody was going to reply. She sighed deeply, slid of her bed and slowly shimmied towards her desk, ready to eat some chocolate.   
Just as she wanted to take a bite, her door burst open. She looked around. Piper was standing in the door opening, with a large bouquet. 'According to Heimdalls' camera's, you got in third during the kart race!' A few more people waltzed into the room. They sang a victory song. One hung a bronze medal around Alex' neck, another one gave her a big box filled with something (Alex was too afraid to guess what). Piper put the flowers onto Alex' bed, clapped in her hands, and dissappeared again. Alex sighed deeply. Piper was fun, she meant it, but sometimes that girl could be weird.   
Magnus peeped around the corner. 'Hey. After the twelth person finished, we were all just pulled from the tracks. Oh, what is in that box?'   
Alex wanted to put her kitkat down, only to realise it was gone, meaning someone had stolen it in the half minute they were in her room. She sighed deeply. 'Let's take a look.'  
It had Ferrero Rochers. Kitkats. Chocolate mints, regular chocolate, the craziest pralines you could think of. Alex grinned widely, before popping something into her mouth. Oh, it was real. It was not a joke. They actually gave her a big box of chocolate for winning the kart race.   
'Dig in,' she told Magnus.


	18. Pie Baking To The Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baking a pie is an art

Mallory rubbed her hands together. She looked at Halfborn. 'Alright. Our main goal is, it probably goes without saying, making sure our pie is better than Alex and T.J.'s.' Halfborn gave a single nod.

'Naturally. I think I found just the recipe in my grandmothers' cookbook.' Halfborn put the piece of paper onto the kitchen counter.

Mallory eyed him up suspiciously. 'Grandmother on which side, exactly? I do not think troll-pies will be any good.'

Halfborn pushed her away. 'Take that back!'

'I am right!'

'No, you are...'

'Einherjar!' One of hotel Valhalla's cooks demanded their attention before the situation could escalate. The man was grinning widely. 'Welcome to my pie-baking class! The first thing I want to say is that it is not a competition...' (that dude is lying through his teeth, Mallory thought. Obviously it is a competition, everything in this hotel is a competition) '...but instead a learning experience! The first rule of making a pie is: gather your ingredients.' The people in the room looked up. The cook had a very mischievous grin on his face. 'You are all here in teams of two or three, right? One person of each team is going to go through that small door over there. Behind the door are a chicken coup, a cow farm and a few patches with fruits and vegetables. Collect the ingredients and you can come back! Meanwhile, the other team member is going to heat up the oven.' Mallory stared at the bellows that appeared in front of her.

'I call dibs on picking fruit...' she began. Yet, Halfborn was already standing by the door, with a little basket. He looked over his shoulder. 'You'll manage!'

'Come back!' Mallory yelled at Halfborns' disappearing back. She swore while turning towards the bellows. 'Alright, alright then, I must beat Alex and T.J., I must beat Alex and T.J...'

Halfborn sprinted through the chicken coup, which caused him to accidentally break a few of the eggs. It did not matter - he had enough for himself, it just meant there was less for the rest. Like a wild beast he ran towards the fruit trees. His grandmothers' recipe was a recipe for apple pie, which seemed the easiest to him - at least there would be no pumpkin carving or doing whatever difficult thing with pecan nuts. Yet, he was not the only one who had thought of this. The trees with big, shiny granny smiths were almost all completely raided, leaving only a few manky looking apples. Halfborn cursed in language so colourful it almost turned the brownish apples back to green, but decided that they had to do.

The next step was getting milk. Halfborn gave the cow a dirty look and could have sworn the cow looked at him just as grossly. 'I... need some milk,' he muttered. The cow very visibly rolled her eyes and walked over to a small stool. Halfborn sat down on it and began with milking.

Gross. Gross. Gross. But it worked. The cow gave delicious, fresh milk. He did not even notice it, but the fact that he had asked to milk the cow was a good thing. Behind him, a person had tried to just begin milking, which caused the cow in front of him to kick him in the head, which was ever so slightly fatal. No pie after dinner for that guy, that much was clear.

With milk, eggs and fruit, Halfborn walked right back into the kitchen. Mallory was standing by the oven, her cheeks bright red from the heavy work. On top of the kitchen counter laid a few other things. 'I found... these things... in the cupboards. Are they helpful?' Mallory puffed. Halfborn stared at the stuff. Butter, flour, cinnamon and sugar. He bit his lip. He wanted to say they did not need help, but this might just be stuff that they actually needed for the pie. 'I do not know, but let us not throw away stuff too early.' Mallory wiped her forehead with her arm.

'Fine. I hope the oven is warm enough, because I cannot do this anymore.' Halfborn put his ingredients on the counter. He pulled a crackled slip of paper out of his pocket. 'Alright. This is the recipe. So first we must... combine the dry ingredients.' He blinked.

'So the flour, cinnamon and sugar?' He picked up a few packages. Mallory glanced over her shoulder. 'Go on. I already see Alex doing something with the eggs.' Halfborn tore open the three packages so quickly that half the flour fell onto his shirt. The sugar leaked onto Mallory's pants. 'Hey! Gross!'

'Yeah, yeah, let's continue.' He threw some flour into a bowl, followed by the sugar.

'Set aside. Cut up the apples and mix with the other half of the sugar.' They looked at the other bowl. 'More sugar is better, am I right?' Mallory asked, before putting the rest of the sugar that was still in the bag and not on her pants into the bowl.

'Do we even know how much flour and sugar we put in?' She asked, a little late. Halfborn shrugged. 'I poured until I heard a voice in the back of my head say it was enough.'

'So we are baking a pie with crazy. Great.'

'I say, we are baking a pie with the help of my dead ancestors' spirits,' Halfborn answered. Mallory rolled her eyes so far back she almost cut her own finger off.

'Add butter and eggs,' Halfborn said out loud. 'Knead into dough. Then layer the inside of a baking tin.' He looked at the ingredients. 'Than what do we need the milk for?'

'You said something about a deadly cow a little bit ago. Maybe it was an early elimination process?'

'That would be stupid!'

'Well, that fits you, doesn't it?' Halfborn slapped her on the back.

'Owh!' she got some stuff out of the bowl and threw it at him.

'Hey! We still need to bake with that!'

Mallory bit her lip. She wanted to say something sassy back, but decided against it. 'You knead the dough. I'll keep that stupid oven warm,' she said, before turning back to the bellows. She pushed her sleeves back. Halfborn awkwardly held his hands above the bowl with ingredients. 'Do I just... dip my hands in?'

'Yes. You can do it, I believe in you.'

'As if that means anything at all.'

'Today it just might, Halfborn!' She pushed down hard on the bellows and stuck out her tongue. Halfborn put his hands into the bowl and began kneading.

It went from gross and moist to slightly less gross and moist. 'Now this is gross and moist,' was all the half troll knew to say about it. Mallory barely paid any attention to him. All her concentration was on the bellows and keeping the oven heated.

They managed to make dough that did not look like soup. Mallory looked over her shoulder for a second, only to see someone with a tentacle around their throat. It had seemingly come from one of the pumpkins they had been carving. 'We made a good call when we did the apple pie,' she whispered to Halfborn. His attention was focused on Alex and T.J., who already had an artful looking pie, ready to be put into the oven. 'Yes. Come, we must put the dough into the tin,' he hastily answered.

Mallory put a finger on the tin, but immediately pulled it away again. 'Gods in Valhalla! That thing is hot!'

'That's cheating,' halfborn whispered. Mallory smacked him on the shoulder.

'It is literally impossible to put the dough into that thing and still have it look good!' Halfborn picked up some dough and put it into the tin with a quick movement. 'It does not matter if it looks good. It has to taste good. And nobody ever died from some burns.'

'Remember floor forty-eight?'

'Except for some rando's from floor forty-eight, who were really stupid and should not have been counted.'

Mallory shrugged. 'Fair enough.'

'Nothing is ever fair in hotel Valhalla. Now help me with the dough.'

With a lot of swearing, they managed to make a bit of pie crust. Mallory threw the apple mixture into the tin. 'We were not going for pretty anyway,' she answered to Halfborns' annoyed look.

'So what? It says here it needs to be gently put onto the dough! Maybe we have just ruined the taste because we did not treat the apples correctly!' Mallory rolled her eyes.

'Then it is my fault, alright? Let's just put another layer of dough on top and then we can put it into the oven.'

Mallory pushed the bellows a couple more times when it was in the oven. 'You know what? It is fine now. If it becomes too cold, it becomes too cold.'

'Are you starting to give up on this pie?'

Mallory bit her lip. '...no, not at all.' She did not say anything else about it.

'Alex and T.J. got their pie out of the oven!'

'Ours has to go seven more minutes and forty more seconds. That was what my late grandmother wrote and that is how it will be. I trust her guidance.'

'Should we not trust our own eyes? It looks fine to me!'

'And it will be better in seven minutes and twenty seconds!'

'Just now it was forty seconds!'

'Yes, because that is how time works. Now sit and wait.'

Exactly seven minutes and ten seconds later, Halfborn got the pie out of the oven. He threw the tin onto the thick kitchen counter. 'Man, that tin gets hotter every single time I touch it!'

'It has been in an oven, what did you expect?'

'In hotel Valhalla, I expect a pie tin that is freezing once it comes out of the oven! Yet, we have to get the pie out somehow.'

'Let's hope it does not fall apart,' Mallory answered, while sending death glares to T.J. and Alex, who had a gorgeous, golden brown pumpkin pie on their counter. Mallory tore open a few drawers, until she found a knife.

The next moment, Alex was standing next to them. 'You know you must take the ring of the tin, right?' Alex grabbed the tin and opened it up, so that only the (Slightly ugly) pie remained at the bottom of the tin.

Mallory pushed her away. 'Get out! Who knows what you already did to our pie now!' Alex shrugged.

'Then you don't want my help.'

'No, we do nót.' Halfborn shook his head to emphasize the point. Alex rolled her eyes, before walking back to her own counter.

Mallory looked at the pie. 'I... I think we are done now, but I have no idea what that untrustworthy person might have done to it!'

'Probably sprinkled on pepper.'

'Totally.'

A few minutes went by, until the cook came to their desk. 'Hello! Can I have a taste?'

'If you really want to.'

The cook got a small fork and a small knife out of his pocket. He cut of a small piece and put the fork into the pie. 'It doesn't look very good,' he commented. He got two pokerfaces as a response. Without saying anything else, he took a bite.

'... Is... is this the secret Mawlings family pie recipe I taste?'

Halfborn looked at his piece of paper. 'Yeah, I guess...'

The cook began to cry large tears of joy. 'It's delicious! I haven't tasted this in years! Oh, this recipe was world famous in its days... It never looked very pretty, but the taste made up for it by a wide margin...' The cook began to give a whole speech about the flavour and live and times of the specific pie. Mallory and Halfborn quickly tuned out.

Mallory subtly turned her head towards T.J. and Alex. They were gawking at the pair. Mallory grinned. 'Mission complete,' Mallory whispered to Halfborn. He gave a quick nod.

'...And so, because no other pie could possibly top this one, I declare this pie-baking session closed!' The cook picked up Halfborn and Mallory's pie. 'Now there is only one thing left to do!' With a graceful movement, he threw the pie into the face of some poor schmuck who was standing next to their own (beautiful and therefore clearly inferior) pie.

Mallory screamed and jumped towards the chef. 'How dare you!? I didn't even get to try that myself!' She screeched. She pulled a knife from her belt and lowered it to the chefs' neck. The chef whipped out a knife of his own and held Mallory back.

In the meantime, other residents began throwing pies and more dangerous objects at other people as well. In the background, someone tried to stuff their whole pie in their face before someone could throw the thing. He was clearly the smartest person in the room that day.


	19. Peace To The Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What is this supposed to be!?

Magnus lowered his sword to his opponents' neck. Sometimes sword fighting was just the best activity in Hotel Valhalla. You knew exactly what was going to happen, which could not be said from drawing class (where it was once so that every other pencil was secretly a deadly snake) or senior yoga (Which was deadly in more ways than I can possibly name). 

Magnus heard that someone was trying to sneak up on him. He twirled around and parried the sword of the new opponent. Jack sung a cheery tune as they fought. The talking sword seemed to agree with Magnus preferences. 

Just as the sword fight was reaching its high point, a beam of light appeared from the ceiling. Everyone yelled and tried to stab it, until a shining figure stepped out, clearly a god. Most people took a moment to think about the implications of fighting a god for a few seconds, before going right back to attacking him.

Yet, the god was not having it. He held out his hand, so that a barrier rose up around him. 'Warriors of Odin! I came here to offer a challenge!' 

Magnus shoulders dropped when he notice who it was: his father, Freyr. He wondered what the god was doing here. Usually, a god of peace like him did not feel much at ease in a place like hotel Valhalla.

'A challenge that might just be a little alien to all of you...' he let the words linger in the air.

'Spill! We have faced challenges worse than you could ever imagine, Vanir!'

'A challenge of peace. I want you all to go without fighting for as long as possible!' The entire room went quiet.

'You want us... to be peaceful? For who knows how long?' Someone asked, sounding like they did not believe it. Freyr nodded excitedly. 'Yes. Unless, of course, you think it is something you cannot do...'

Those simple, cliché words were exactly what the warriors needed to hear in order to accept the challenge. Everywhere, sword were dropped to the floor. 'There will be peace! Spread the word!' Someone declared. A chorus of voices repeated the words after him.

'There will be peace!'

Magnus rolled his eyes and walked up to his father. 'Why are you doing this?' he asked.

'I think everyone deserves some peace now and then,' Freyr answered, with a sparkle in his eyes. Magnus gave him a deadpan look. 'This is hotel Valhalla, though...'

'Yeah, you need to learn how to fight for Ragnarok. But you need to learn about peace as well.' Freyr gave Magnus a pat on the head, before stepping back into his beam of light and taking his leave.

Magnus assumed the peace would last for five minutes at the most. When the sixth minute began, he started to feel weird. People seemed serious about this. Some people were still carrying around their weapons, but there were clearly less people walking around with sharp objects than before.

The residents of the hotel began to leak out into the hallway. Magnus decided to follow them. In the hallway, he came across Alex. He had a strange look on his face. 'Hey, Magnus. So, how do you feel about it?' 

Magnus shrugged. 'You mean peace? I mean, on one hand, it seems like heaven. Not Valhalla, but like, I mean, it seems kinda good. Maybe I can finally go to... sewing class or something without inevitably being stabbed with a sewing needle or getting run over by a sewing machine. On the other hand, it is not very Valhalla, don't you think?' Alex nodded slowly, like he only heard half of what Magnus had said.

'Yeah, yeah, exactly. Weird.'

Mallory came running up to them out of the blue bloody nowhere. 'Guys! Have you seen what the 'weekly activity' is?'

'Weekly activity?'

'It is peace to the death! How are... what?' Mallory looked just as confused as Magnus felt.

'They think they can keep it up for at least a week?' Alex asked. Mallory threw her hands in the air.

'Apparently! It's awful!' Magnus looked down the hallway. Everyone around him was either confused, angry or happy, but he started to disassociate. Oh, man, this was going to be one heck of a week.

Well, week... not really. More like few days. In that time, it got... pretty, actually. Because people had nothing else to do, a lot of them decided to watch beauty guru videos on youtube and a few of them decided to try out different looks for themselves. It was all fine and dandy until someone decided to smear the make-up onto someone elses face. One thing lead to another and what started of as a harmless make-up prank quickly turned into thé new way of attacking people.

Alex peeked around the corner of the hallway. He wanted to go to the knitting class (not to the death) that day, but he did not feel like showing up with a face full of clown makeup. He did not know how, but some people had gotten a proficiency in applying prank makeup and you never know where an attacker was hiding. It was almost like everything was normal. Someone might be standing right around the corner with a nicely named 'hawaii summer' pallet.

He took a deep breath and ran to the next door. Behind him, he heard footsteps. He wasted no time in running even quicker. 'Get out! I do not need bright red lipstick today!'

'That is why I got pink!' Oh, so there really was one of them after him. He slammed the door behind him, which bought him barely any time at all. It was like they all ran through the doors instead of stopping to open them. Alex looked around. Where was the knitting class again? Common room #422? #420? It was something with a four and a two, he remembered that.

'Don't you have anything better to do?' he yelled over his shoulder.

'Do what? I usually go to combat class at this hour!'

'Maybe you could get a new hobby? Or you all could train on dummy's instead of training on each other!'

'Now that's crazy!' Dummy's do not move! It would be totally unrealistic!' Alex rolled his eyes. There was no arguing with that logic, though.

Eventually, he could smell the well-known scent of incense that old lady Marks, who gave the knitting class, was always burning. She said it was for the gods, but most people assumed she used it to fuel her own soul. Not that it mattered, everyone did stuff like that sometimes.

Alex ran into the room and unclenched her shoulders, only to remember that there was absolutely no certainty that nobody would make-up bomb her just because she was in a classroom now. She looked over her shoulder and noticed a girl from floor seventy-two. She shrugged and turned around. 'You'll never catch me in a knitting class!' she yelled over her shoulder, while swaying away.

Alex dropped to the floor with a sigh. 'I am here to knit,' he muttered calmly. He heard another sigh. He opened his eyes. Someone was standing over them with knitting needles and a ball of yarn. Their face was covered in a thick layer of foundation and rouge. 'I would say you are lucky, but you annoy me to much for that,' they told Alex.

Yet, every period of piece inevitably knows an end, sometimes because people cannot stand each other anymore, and sometimes because people buy makeup that is just too cheap and toxic for your skin. After a few days, the first victims fell to wearing toxic makeup for too long. After that, the einhirjar collectively decided that the challenge was over. Somebody had died, so what did no killing policy matter? Their fallen comrades had to be defended!

Freyr took a deep breath and a sip of coffee. It had been fun for the three days the peace lasted. Maybe he should ask Odin to allow him to give peace classes, he thought. The warriors should know not to fight each other during Ragnarok.


	20. Voting To The Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hotel Valhalla needs a new assistent manager! And for once, they decided to settle it the civil way.

The hotel manager was starting to get enough of this. He had been thinking that for years, but now he meant it. Running a hotel was one thing. Running it with your worst enemy was another. The prospect of having to run it with one of the residents, who were pretty prone to violence, was on a whole other level.  
And then the part where the residents needed to vote. If Odin would have picked the most competent person to run the hotel alongside the manager, it would have been bearable. He trusted Odin just enough to pick a competent leader (Odin had picked him, after all). But having the einherjar pick probably the worst out of their own ranks to rule? No, no, no. But then, the worst of the worst that made everything else fade in comparison: he had to set up the voting booths.  
That is why the manager of hotel Valhalla was setting up small booths and a big box in front of the table where he would be sitting. He already knew there was no way he could monitor everything and he had to admit it made him a little apathetic. Somehow, someone was going to commit fraud and get away with it, at least one person was going to get crushed to death and at least three were going to fight each other or themselves or both each other and themselves at the same time. With a deep breath, he sat down. He looked at the red button on the desk - the button that would open the mechanical doors and allow everyone into the voting hall. How long would he be able to put of pushing it until Odin would come tell him to do it? He played with the idea of trying it out, until he took a deep breath and pressed it.  
A group of cheering teenagers dressed in animal hides and jeans ran into the room. 'Ferg for manager! Ferg for manager!' They chanted in between cheers. The manager swallowed. Please not Ferg, he prayed to the gods. He took another deep breath - Ferg was not that popular outside of his crazy friend group. There was a slim chance he would actually become assistent manager.  
The teenagers had been a quick bunch. After them, there were no(t yet) waves of people coming into the hall to bring out their vote. A couple of old people came in, followed by someone who looked like they did not sleep at all and they might as well go and let their voice be heard, followed by a couple of bored looking gamers and someone with a sword that was just as big as their body. It stayed quiet after that. The hotel manager sighed happily. He knew opening the votes at 3 A.M. would make sure that he did not immediately lose his mind and that he could pretend that it had been alright for the first few hours.

Magnus felt something pinching him. 'Magnus.'  
'Is there a midnight ghost hunt to the death that I was signed up for without consent?' He inquired, sounding half asleep.  
'No,' the pincer answered. Magnus noticed they sounded an awful lot like Mallory. 'No, there are no ghost hunts, sadly enough. That would be cool. Beantown, it is 5 A.M., I was up to get a pre-breakfast snack and then I noticed that the election for assistant hotel manager has started. Now we have to go.'  
'Assistent... what... when do the votes close?'  
'No idea, Mag! That is why we have to run before James Damien Peterus Fred the III gets voted or they elect Ferg!'  
Magnus slid out of his bed. He hated to admit it, but Mallory had a point.  
'Who can we elect?' He asked, while they were walking to the elevator. Their floormates were still dressing themselves, something Magnus had flat out been too lazy for. He had hope - and he already felt with every fiber of his being that it was nothing more than hope - that he could simply vote and crawl back into his comfy bed.  
Mallory shrugged. 'No idea. I think you can elect who ever, as long as it is not yourself.'  
'You cannot elect yourself? That honestly sounds very anti-Valhalla.'  
Mallory shrugged. 'I guess they still have some common sense here.'  
'Not the common sense to let people do talks or something to convince people to vote for them a few days prior, however.'  
Mallory looked at Magnus. 'I can guarantee you that if the voting takes longer than say, 6 A.M., people will start preaching their beliefs anyway.' Magnus sighed and pushed on the right elevator button. 'I am afraid you are right. Now let's get this over with.'  
When they were downstairs, they realised there were already people preaching their own greatness in the hallways. Some looked like they had been talking for at least an hour. Magnus and Mallory danced past the people pushing swiftly made flyers and dangerous lollipops into their faces (man, those tango classes had been good for something at least) and scurried into the voting hall.  
It was starting to fill up now. The hotel manager seemed annoyed, as if he had expected it to stay quiet until at least 7 A.M. Or something of that jazz. Now he had to make sure a few jazz players did not vote for the same person thrice.  
'Who are you going to vote for?' Magnus whispered to Mallory. She shrugged.  
'I am debating between a few people. Not Daniel from floor forty, I know that for sure.'  
Magnus shrugged. He had no idea why Mallory suddenly had such a distaste for Daniel from floor forty. Daniel was not a bad guy. Maybe he killed Mallory during the scavenger hunt from last friday.  
'I think I will be voting for Mags from floor eight hundred. She always seems like a wise lady.'  
'Didn't she kill someone with a crocheted blanket once?'  
'If we start to think like that, we can vote on literally nobody. And didn't you use origami to kill someone during the weekly brawl once upon a time?'  
Mallory shrugged. 'Maybe.'  
They literally just had to write the name of their choice onto a small piece of paper. For a moment, Magnus wondered how they were going to count those votes in a time frame that did not take more than ten years, but he quickly decided it did not matter. Tomorrow or ten years later, what did it matter for an assistant manager who would probably leave within two days?  
They dropped their ballots into the voting box and were immediately ushered out of the room. 'It surprises me that the voting box did not explode in our faces,' Magnus said with a yawn. The comment was immediately followed by a loud explosion. 'Alright, spoke to soon.'  
They thought they could just walk back to their rooms. Yeah, no. Even though they had already voted, the campaigning folks still jumped at them from left and right. 'Go back and vote again,' one girl hissed at Magnus when he said he had already voted. He did not know how quickly he had to foxtrot away.  
There were more campaigners out and about than fifteen minutes prior. But not only where there more of them, they had also become more aggressive. There was not a single campaigner without a sword or other weapon by their side. Magnus started walking slower. 'What are you doing? We have to get out!' Mallory hissed. Magnus narrowed his eyes.  
'Yes, we do, but I am too curious.' He pointed at someone who was carrying three different lollipops. 'I think there is something with those lollipops. Just wait until he gets out from voting again and then we can leave, alright?' Mallory rolled her eyes, but obliged.  
The guy came walking out of the voting hall and it took three seconds for him to collapse onto the ground, foaming at the mouth. Magnus sighed deeply. 'I think there is something in those lollipops that kills you if you do not vote for the person you got it from,' he explained. Mallory rolled her eyes again. 'That would not surprise me. Now let's get out of here, because while you were playing watchman I have fought of ten different people already.'  
When they walked into the elevator, they passed their floormates. 'And?'  
'You guys took long. And do not eat the lollipops,' was the only answer they got. Magnus took a deep breath while they were going back upstairs. 'Can't wait until I am back in my comfy bed,' he told Mallory, who gave him a gross look.  
'What are you doing? You have just made our chance of getting impaled ten times higher!' she screamed, before a group of vikings walked into the elevator and they were both accidentally impaled by their spears.

'So, you are eating a lot,' Alex commented when she saw Magnus' plate the next day. He growled.  
'I missed breakfast yesterday. I deserve a portion that is twice as big today,' he answered. Alex shrugged. 'I can't argue with that logic.'  
When they sat down, the hotel manager got to the front of the room. He looked extremely tired, as if he had not slept in three days or so. 'Alright. The all-seeing people above me have counted the votes and we now know who the assistant hotel manager is going to be.'  
'That was quick,' Magnus commented. Alex shushed him.  
'Shh. I want to know how bad our lives are going to be,' she told him. Magnus stayed quiet.  
'I thought you all would elect some loud mouth, or the person who gave the tastiest lollipops or something. Well, no, you did something that surprised me even more.' He sighed deeply. 'Without further ado, the new assistant hotel manager is our trustworthy art teacher, Bob Ross.' Everyone, even the people who had been adamant about someone else, began to cheer while their art teacher came onto the stage. 'Hello hotel Valhalla! Thanks for electing me - I have come specifically out of vanirheim to help you all. I am sure it will be a wonderfully happy time!'  
Magnus' mouth hung open. '... That did not go... as I was expecting, but you do not hear me complaining or anything.'  
The manager took over the microphone again. 'I think you all might find it nice to hear that the runner up was Piper Mclean, who is also not an official inhabitant of hotel Valhalla. When I look at the list, the first actual resident is somewhere around place seven and it is me, which, honestly, thank you guys, I appreciate the gesture. If anybody wants to see the official poll list, it will be posted on the bulletin board. Do what you want with that information.' The manager gave the microphone back to Bob Ross and walked off stage.  
'It could have been worse,' Magnus said with a shrug. Alex nodded, before taking a big bite of sausage. 'Welp. I guess there are still people around here who know what is good for them,' she answered. She couldn't care less, honestly.


	21. Water Gun Fight To The Death

'Are you planning on getting the gods involved?' Piper asked, while softly petting her super soaker.  
Mallory shrugged. 'Maybe.'  
Magnus shook his head. 'No, I would like to not end up in helheim.'  
'Boring!'  
'Shush, Mallory. We are planning on starting a squirt gun fight, not on getting condemned to hell.'  
'You, maybe,' Mallory whispered under her breath, so that only T.J. next to her could hear it. He took a little step back.  
'When are we leaving?' Alex filled her supersoaker with a cup of... something. It was not water, that much was clear.  
'Didn't we have a rule where we could use only water?' T.J. asked.  
Alex grinned like a crazy person. 'That was only a suggestion. And as soon as the other floors join in, there is no way in Hellheim that they will stick to that rule. We must be prepared, T.J.!' The boy took a deep breath and decided not to argue against it.   
'And to answer your question, Alex,' Piper said while standing up, 'how about we leave now?' Her suggestion was met with cheering from all sides, even from the previously so cautious Magnus and T.J. They all picked up their super soakers and squirt guns and ran out of Magnus' room, ready to start some drama (Because gods know that hotel Valhalla did not yet have enough of it).

'Where do we go?' Piper asked, while they were all crammed into the elevator. Alex shrugged.  
'Hm. We could go to the dining hall.'  
'No, we might start a trend and then we can never eat in peace again,' Magnus predicted.  
'The main hall, then?'  
'Boring!' Halfborn fidgeted with his venom green supersoaker. 'Everyone would go to the main hall.'  
'Oh! Paper machée class!' Alex held her supersoaker high above her head to emphazise her point.  
'That is evil! Let's do it!' Mallory answered, while hanging her squirt gun (She had a super soaker too, but she decided a smaller weapon might help her in a crisis) right.  
As soon as the elevator gave a little ding and the doors rolled open, they began to run again, to paper marchée class. 'Have you ever been there?' Piper asked Magnus.  
'No, but I was planning to go this tuesday,' he admitted.  
'So are you not shooting yourself in the foot then? I mean, like what you said, what if people copy what you are doing?'  
'We'll cross that bridge when we get there,' Magnus answered. He looked around. 'Look. There are already people joining us,' he said with a grin. Piper looked over a shoulder. Before they had even started themselves, there were already other einherjar targeting each other with supersoakers.   
'That is quick!'  
'That is the magic of hotel Valhalla! Rejoice!' Piper thought about that for a moment, until she nodded with a grin. Magnus was right. Stuff like this would stay a lot calmer in camp half-blood - she had to rejoice for the time being.  
While screaming like a bunch of modern vikings, they ran into the paper marchée class. Halfborn soaked someones creation with water before they even realised there were foes in the room. The person was not born yesterday, however, and within one fluid motion dumped his paper marchée creation, which just so happened to be filled with gunpowder, into Halfborns face.  
The gunpowder could not explode anymore, but it is really nasty stuff to get into your eyes. Halfborn screamed and tried to punch ahead, but the person was quicker than that and ran out of the paper marchée class, straight to their own room to retrieve their own squirt gun.   
Within minutes, everyone in the room was covered with water, crappy paint and paper. Piper ducked under a table, which happened to be the table were T.J. was also hiding. 'What are we going to do now? Spread out?'  
T.J. nodded, with a sly grin. 'Yes. We are going to spread this water curse through the rest of the hotel. And you have probably noticed by now that we do not even have to do that much work. Also, just a tip, don't think the people from floor eighteen will keep protecting you for long. This will turn into everyone versus everyone within seconds.'  
'Thanks for the tip, I figured that,' Piper said. She began to smile in a way T.J. did not like at all, before she turned her water gun towards him and shot a huge beam of water straight into his face. T.J. slid out from under the table and sprinted to the door. Sadly enough, he slipped on what used to be a banana made of paper marchée and landed onto a table, which gave him a quick ticket back to his room.  
Tyr, the god of war, had been waiting for this since the first squirt gun was ever created. He had a whole arsenal of squirt guns, super soakers and other water weapons in his house in Valhalla just for this exact happening. Armed with his ten favorite brightly coloured weapons, he ran into hotel Valhalla. A few people noticed who he was and stopped shooting each other to stand in awe for a moment, but that lasted until Tyr began to hit them all with hard-hitting beams of water. One person was shot and pushed against the wall by stream, which gave him a fast pass back to bed.

'A god joined in - I repeat, a god joined in!' Mallory said, while running past Magnus. The son of Freyrs' mouth fell open. 'Who?'  
'Tyr!'  
'Curses!' He aimed at Mallory, who ducked behind a wall. Magnus water beam hit some poor schmuck who happened to be running by, but who swiftly turned his own weapon towards Magnus. He expected a jolt of water back and was unpleasantly surprised when he got hit with a wave of paint instead. Before he could run away, he was hit in the head with the colourful stuff and fell to the floor. Welp, I could use some extra sleep, was his last conscious thought that morning.

'Piper!'  
'Ah, get out, get out!'  
Alex rolled her eyes. 'Piper, we need to band together for a moment. You know how you asked if gods were going to join in? Well, they did, and I have only one goal now.'  
'Is that not dangerous?'  
'Maybe if this was a water gun fight in the greek world. But in hotel Valhalla, if a god joins a brawl, they know exactly what they've done and they deserve to be destroyed.'  
'Alright then. One issue, though, my gun is almost empty.' Alex sighed deeply and pulled a small baggie out of her pocket. 'Here is some long-lasting water. Unless it is acid, it might also be acid. be warned.'  
Piper decided not to reply. She just shoved the mystery fluid into her water gun. 'Let us find that god.'  
The water gun fight had spread to almost every floor in the hotel, but Tyr had stayed in the main rooms, where the most einherjar were running around. While screaming, Alex and Piper ran into the room and just began to fire at anything and everything they saw. At least two people missed lunch because of Alex' special filling.  
Without fully knowing what she was doing, Alex pointed the super soaker right at Tyr and hit him straight in the place where his heart was. It would have killed him if it had been a real rootin' tootin' gun fight.  
Tyr looked up. He saw Alex, who looked both afraid, surprised and extremely proud of herself. That one, I like that one, he thought. It is very sad that I have to end her now.  
Piper saw Alex fall and decided that she had had her fun. She sprinted out of the main hall, through the lobby, to the bifrost.

'Aren't you joining in the great slay?' she asked Heimdal, who was working hard overlooking the nine worlds for any signs of Ragnarok (And for places in mitgard that were serving free food). He looked over his shoulder, at Piper.  
'No, I did not feel like it today.' Piper noticed that his sight was focussed on a single point in Midgard. 'Are they serving free wraps?'  
'Free taco's. In the Netherlands.'  
Piper put down her supersoaker. 'I could use some energy before I go back into the fight.'  
Heimdal tapped his staff onto the bifrost, so that an extra way was created, right in front of the taco store. 'Let's go eat some tacos so that you can destroy them all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I know this was not the best story. I will write another water gun fight to the death in a few weeks, but then with a few more rules in place...


	22. Kitten Day Care To The Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kittens! Everybody loves them, even when they are dangerous!

'What if the kittens get injured?' Alex asked, while staring straight ahead.  
'I'd rather die than let the kittens get injured,' was Magnus' answer. Alex coughed.  
'Agreed.'  
Freya, generous as she is, decided to gift a litter of kittens to Hotel Valhalla. Odin, smart as he is, gave them their own floor and decided to ask a few einherjar to take care of them. And Alex and Magnus, lucky as they are, managed to get a spot on the team (for now, at least).  
The activity had been named 'kitten day-care to the death.' The most worrisome thing was the possibility that something would happen to the cats (they did not care about what would happen to them. They were somehow going to die anyway, that was part of hotel Valhalla activities with the exception of the classes Bob Ross gave).  
Alex was whistling a tune when they stepped out of the elevator, onto floor 808. Previously, James Daniel and his gang used to live there, but they were forcefully moved to floor 1616 and their rooms were given to the kittens.   
In the middle of the room stood an older lady with a vibrantly purple coat - Mags, one of the more typical old ladies in hotel Valhalla, with hobbies such as knitting, cats, reading romance novels and going all out in the weekly brawl armed with a knitted scarf.  
'Hello, Magnus and Alex,' she greeted the two younger Einherjar. 'Nice that you two...' her words were interrupted by a loud meowing. A large, gray cat came prancing around the corner.  
'Hey, I thought there were supposed to be kittens?'  
'Yes, but I brought Mittens along, so that he has some more social interaction!' Magnus had to try his hardest to not say that Mittens had Mags' twenty-something other cats to play with on her own floor.  
'You arrived just before feeding time!' Magnus could not help but notice that Mags got a dangerous glint in her eyes. 'Eh, yeah, what are they going to...'  
'They eat mostly very small bites of fish. Except for my cutesy-wootsy Mittens of course, he gets a big fish, doesn't he?' she said, while pinching the cat's cheeks. Mittens pulled his face out of her hands. He looked annoyed, but Magnus figured that could also just be the shape of his face. You never knew with cats.  
'Two other ladies are already preparing the food. If you two could just round up our little devils?' Mags looked at them with a broad smile that made Magnus feel both loved and uncomfortable.  
Alex took a deep, dramatic breath. 'Alright. Kittens are fast and tiny. I don't know if... Wait, there is one!' Without waiting on Magnus to answer, Alex bolted towards the tiny ball of fur on the floor. 'Come here... Ah!' She tripped over a plastic toy on the floor and fell flat on her face. The kitten sprinted into its' room. Magnus, who was a little slow today, shuffled over to Alex. 'Do you need help?'  
'Go get that kitten!'  
'It ran into its room.'  
'Go after it, or something!' Magnus jogged over to the door, while Alex tried to get up from the floor again in a very complicated manner.  
Magnus put his hand onto the doorknob and tried to open the door. It did not give him. Magnus tried harder, but it was no use. By his feet, the cat flap swung around a few times, as if the kitten was secretly laughing at him. 'Alex...'  
His significant other was already walking through his legs, in the form of a cat with pink and green fur. She hopped through the cat flap. Magnus heard a lot of meowing from behind the door. He took a few steps back. Maybe he should try to find another kitten.  
One just ran past. Magnus dove down to grab it, but was too late and the kitten ran off, into its room. He looked around, annoyed, until he saw something pink and green prance around on the floor. It was cat-Alex, with one of the kittens by the scruff of its neck.  
'I see you are truly becoming a mother,' Magnus commented. Alex droppen the kitten of in front of Mags, before hissing at Magnis. She ran through another cat flap, ready to get the next baby.  
'Eh... can I do anything else? I think I will do more harm than good if I try to catch kittens as well.' Mags petted the little kitten on it's fluffy head. 'Hm, I guess I asked for too many people...' Magnus gulped. He prayed to the gods that nobody would run in to throw him out the window now that he was worthless.  
'... So you can just sit here and look after Mittens!' Magnus stared the fat, spoiled cat into its permanently annoyed face. '...great.' At least he would not be thrown out of the window (That was his least favorite way of dying).  
He sat down next to Mittens, who put his fat body next to Magnus and looked at him, clearly conscious of the situation. Meanwhile, cat-alex kept bringing kittens to the group.  
Just as she was done and she changed back into a human, two girls came out with bowls of cat food. Magnus peeked at the bowls. He had no idea what was in the cat food and he did not want to know. Mags had said fish, but it looked like it could be anything: immortal goat, einherjar left-overs (interpret that however you want), ancient monster, fruits and vegetables.  
'Good, girls! Now give it to the cats!' Mags had not needed to say that, as the cats more or less decided to give it to themselves. They were trying to climb up the legs of the girls, who were screeching at this moment. Mags pulled a few of the kittens off, but they climbed back on quicker than she and the girls could flick them off. One of them dumped her bowl onto the floor. A little bit of food rolled over the brim, but at least they were not hanging onto her pants anymore.  
The other girl was wearing a skirt and socks. She did not dare to drop the bowl of food until she herself dropped to the floor. Her body quickly disappeared.  
'What...'  
'I think the nails might be a little venomous,' Mags pondered. 'Well, Magnus, I guess you'll have to join Sheryll in her work now.'  
Sheryll looked confused. 'Wait, but they also climbed up my legs. How am I not dead?'  
'It got onto your pants, not into your leg. Good job on throwing that bowl down, that way you gave them less time to climb up!'   
The kittens, meanwhile, were gorging on the cat substance. 'What do we do after this?' Alex inquired. Mags absentmindedly petted Mittens. 'Oh, we give them a bath. As you see, they get quite dirty after eating. She vaguely gestured at the kittens, who were indeed getting themselves covered in greasy cat stuff.  
'Isn't that dangerous? Because of the poison and all that?' Magnus asked. Mags looked at him and shrugged. 'They still need to be taken care off!' She said it in a tone that did not invite Magnus to talk back. He shrugged and looked at Alex and Sheryll, who also as if they were not certain about it being a good idea.   
Mags brought them to the back, where a bathtub was standing. 'Now, if Alex can collect the cats again, Sheryll can fill the tub and Magnus can stand by,' she suggested (But it was not really a suggestion because it was going to happen that way whether they liked it or not). Sheryll and Magnus got to work on filling the tub while Alex changed into a cat and pranced outside to round up the little, cute, annoying fluffballs.  
She put them straight into the tub, even though Mags protested every single time she did so. The kittens mewed out loud whenever one got into the bathtub. They tried to climb out, but to no avail - Alex kept pushing them back. Meanwhile, Mittens waddled into the room. He placed his big body right next to Magnus and started to stare at him again.  
'We now softly put some shampoo on the kittens...' Mags picked up a bottle and put some on her hand, before softly massaging it into a kitten. A lot of dirt began to come off. Even more dirt followed. And more.  
The dirt kept getting worse and worse. 'How dirty are these kittens!?' Sheryll shreaked. Alex and Magnus could only stare. Mittens proofed that he was the only smart one in the room, as he quickly ran outside.   
The dirt literally started to pile up. Mags stopped putting shampoo into the kittens' fur, but it did nothing to stop the dirt from coming. Eventually, Sheryll took a deep breath and reached for the shower head. She turned it onto the kitten.  
She might as well have opened a dirt-faucet. All the dirt now came out at once. Magnus and Alex found their speed back and ran out of the room before the dirt pile could suffocate them. Mags, who was used to hotel Valhalla's nonsense, managed to follow them quickly after. Sheryll was not so lucky.   
The kittens, however, seemed fine. They all came prancing past the dirt mountain, into the hallway, seemingly still mowing for food and attention. Magnus and Alex did not feel like giving it anymore, if they had to be fully honest. 'Eh... we promised to help one of our roommates with paper-marchéeing,' Magnus murmured. Mags gave him an annoyed look.  
'So you are just going to bail out now? While we must still clean up five of the kittens?' Magnus quickly nodded.  
'Actually, yes! Mallory is scary!' He flew towards the elevator, with Mittens on his heels. The cat got into the elevator with him. Alex could just see Magnus looking afraid as it went down and the doors closed.  
'Cleaning up... the other cats?' she asked in a grave voice. Mags nodded.  
'Yes. And we'll go to the shower room for that, that sounds safer.' Now Alex was glad that she stayed behind. The shower room was a room filled with, as the name suggested, showers, for when the sanitary on people's own floors broke down. One could really start some mayhem when one tried to clean up a few uncleanable kittens there.  
'...I'll follow,' she told Mags, while they walked to the lift, Mags with three and Alex with two poison kitties in her arms.  
The elevator brought them to the shower floor. There was no-one to be seen in the room with group showers. They only heard some distant singing from one of the private showers. 'Perfect. Now, Alex, put the kittens on the ground.' Mags was already walking off to the button with which the showers could be activated all at once.  
'Don't they need some shampoo?'  
'Their fur first needs to get wet.'  
'Their fur is already wet.'  
Mags did not say anything while she turned on the shower. With a lot of mewing, the water fell onto the kittens.  
A seemingly infinite amount of dirt came out of their fur coats. It was too much, even for the shower room. Before she had a chance to be suffocated, Alex slipped on some of the mud and fell onto her head. Somehow, Mags must have also perished, except there was no-one else around to see it.   
What was known, however, is that there are now five kittens walking around hotel Valhalla unchecked, commiting crimes all around. No-one ever knew when they would strike next, which caused quite some more mayhem indeed (Oh, and also known is that Magnus was seen a few times fighting with Mittens before suddenly appearing in his room. Make of that what you want).


	23. Paper-Marcheé To The Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Glue, paper and iron wire! What could possibly go wrong?

'I asked Magnus and Alex to come help us, too,' Mallory said while she and Halfborn were walking down the hall, to the brand-new and exciting paper-marcheé class. Halfborn pursed his lips. 'Why? They will probably only mummify themselves.'  
'That's why I invited them.'  
'Figures.'  
'Hey!'  
'Everything you do always comes back to malice, Mallory...'  
Mallory pushed him against the chest. 'Stop it or I'll mummify you once were inside!'  
'I'd like to see you mummify me before I mummify you!' Was Halfborn's' gracious response. Mallory began to run. 'Not if I get there first!' Halfborn ran right after her. 'I would not be so sure about your victory!'  
Half-running and half-fighting, they entered the arts-and-crafts room. They stopped fighting when they heard a loud 'hey!' Behind them. Mallory turned around and noticed someone filling up a paper-marceé creature with gray powder. 'Watch out! This is not meant to explode yet!'  
Carefully, they maneuvered around the not-yet bomb, to one of the free tables.  
'I am having flashbacks to the origami-class,' Mallory commented. 'Someone once made a violent Yoda with a lightsaber.'  
'Oh, that wasn't a fever dream?' halfborn asked with a tired expression.  
'Nope. I was there in the class when it was made.'   
Halfborn got a mischievous glint in his eyes. 'Well, then we must make something to get our revenge on him.' Mallory looked at the colorful paper that was laying everywhere.   
'I can do that quicker than you. I still have to get back at you for making that snide comment.'  
'You're on.' Halfborn walked to the other side of the room to start working on his project, while Mallory settled down to work on hers.  
She had no idea what she was going to make, but it was not going to be something to get back at the person who made origami yoda. It was going to be something to get right back at Halfborn. She just knew it had to be bright pink, because that was the colour of the paper-marcheé laying on the table in front of her. There was only one other girl sitting at the table. She was making something that looked like a unicorn.  
Mallory reached for some old newspaper, iron wire and crepe-paper. Without really knowing what she was doing, she began to bend the iron wire into weird shapes until she found something she was satisfied by. It resembled absolutely nothing, except that it was funny and so she went with it. She grabbed some newspaper and dipped it into the glue. She hung it onto her iron wire thing and waited. Then she did that again, and another time.  
She sighed deeply. 'So this is it?'  
'It is an art and I see you do not understand that,' the other girl at the table said in a hoarse voice. Mallory turned towards her and her hot pink unicorn. 'Uh-uh. So what art are you making? I mean, it is clearly a unicorn, but...'  
'It is the valkyrie unicorn of truth and it is meant to be a special pinata!' The girl said snidely. Mallory rolled her eyes, which made the girl even more angry. 'Just wait until the weekly brawl!' She warned, before paper-marcheéing her unicorn with double the speed she had been doing before.  
Mallory sighed louder than necessary when she glued some more bright pink paper-marcheé onto her creation. She clapped in her hands while waiting for a bit of it to dry out, even though it annoyed the unicorn girl. The glue and paper left marks on her hands.   
In the background, she heard someone yelling. Quickly, she turned around. Someone was looking at their hands, which were stuck together. 'I can't get my hands loose!'  
'Get the water and soap!'  
Glue guy stumbled towards the kitchen counter in the corner, which had a tub and soap. They opened the tab and waited for a moment. And another moment. The moments began to pile up, but there was no warm water coming out of the tab. Eventually, the person with his hands glued together just sighed and walked out of the room. The red cat he had been working on was only halfway done and not yet dry, but it jumped off the table and ran right after him (Oh, so he used fairy dust, some people thought. Ridiculous, they only brought creatures to live that were actually finished). While doing so, the cat pushed a bowl filled with glue of the table, right onto the floor and over another guys' hands.  
The guy put his hand over his face to show that he was shocked. He really should not have done that, as now his hands were glued to his face. More specifically, over his nose and mouth.  
The guy quickly realised what he had done and sprinted out of the room, to seek a nice, quiet place to try to die in peace and with as much honour as you could have when the cause of death was because your hands were glued to your face.  
Someone burst into laughter. A few others snickered along, while others seemed to mortified (There were some newbies in the room. Go easy on them, they are not fully used to hotel Valhalla yet). Mallory noticed that Halfborn was almost keeling over laughing. Quickly, she tore of some more newspaper and pink crepe-paper - now that he was distracted, she needed to make her move.  
The girl was almost done with her unicorn. She snickered in a way Mallory did not like at all.  
'Say, can you put your... spikey ball closer to me?' she asked. Mallory picked up her spiky ball and about half of all the pink paper and walked to another table. 'No,' she yelled over her shoulder. A few people gave her suspicious looks when she sat down at their table, but nobody said she should leave, probably because she brought her own paper and did not steal their green crepe-paper.  
Halfborn looked at the blue square that he had made. He had lied about making something to take revenge on Mallory or the guy who made origami Yoda - he was going to totally surprise her with a pinata filled with nougat and chocolate, which he had brought with him in a small bag. He stuck some more sticky paper onto the blue square, until he decided it was almost finished. There was only a small hole left. He just had to wait for the last pieces to dry, than he could fill it up with candy, glue the last pieces of paper in place and he would be done. Now he could just watch at everyone around him.  
Someone had made a paper-marcheé elephant, which had knives for tusks. It was kind of cool and would have rocked during the weekly brawl, if it wasn't for the fact that the thing got out of control with very predicatable results.   
Suddenly, Halfborn heard something zoom. He turned his head around. One of the people at his table was holding a hairdryer to dry his creation (A chonky pikachu that could probably shoot real lightning). Halfborn raised his eyebrows.  
'Say, can I borrow that?'  
'Absolutely not. I got this hairdryer from my grandmother, what are you thinking?' Halfborn took a good look at the hairdryer. He had to admit, it really looked like a grandmother-tool. It had that dirty shade of pink. 'I am thinking that I want to borrow that hairdryer so that I can dry this present I made for my girlfriend,' he explained.  
'Well, you thought wrong,' the man said while he went on with drying it passive-aggressively.  
A few moments later, the hair dryer made some weird sounds. The person who really loved his grandmother gave it a few weird looks and that was all it took for the hairdryer to explode. The dude was transported straight to his room, but the hairdryer began to put itself back together. Halfborn gave it a good look, before picking it up and lightly using it. He managed to dry his blue box before it exploded again.  
Mallory stared at her pink bomb. It was the most evil thing she could think off - a glitter bomb, filled with only the pinkest glitter she could find (And some green glitter which she snatched from the new table. The other einherjar were not amused, but what were they going to do, attack her?).  
Halfborn and Mallory managed to be done at about the same time. They stood up in unison, which made the whole of the paper-marcheé class think they orchestrated it. Together, they marched out of the class, into the hallway.  
'Trade?'  
'Trade.' Mallory handed Halfborn her pink monstrosity, and Halfborn handed Mallory his blue box.  
'So what did you do with it?'  
'Pry it open and see, woman!'  
Mallory laid the blue box on the floor. She took a few steps back, before throwing her knife at it. Her eyes got big when the chocolate came out. 'Is that chocolate or mud?'  
'Smell for yourself.' Still cautious, Mallory padded over to the pinata. She sniffed.  
'It... actually smells like chocolate.' She got a little red around her cheeks. 'You might not want to open up that pink monstrosity.'  
'I can handle some gunpowder!'  
'It is not... it isn't filled with gunpowder,' she muttered.  
Halfborn narrowed his eyes, before he kicked the piñata across the hallway. All the glitter came out at once, in one big cloud.  
'You made a glitter bomb.'  
'Hm-mm...'  
'How could you!?'  
'I didn't think you'd make me a present. Actually, how could you? Now I need to do my entire project over!' She picked up her chocolate and began to walk right back to the paper-marcheé bunker. Halfborn followed right behind her - he could not let Mallory get away with making a glitter bomb.  
Together, they re-opened the door. They could not have been gone for more then five minutes, but the room had transformed from a cozy and only slightly dangerous arts-and-crafts room into a war zone. People were throwing paper, glue and glitter everywhere. There were a few people who started to look like piñata's themselves (which is really dangerous in hotel Valhalla because some people don't pay attention to how their piñata looks). For a few seconds, Mallory and Halfborn stood by and watched. When they unfroze, they reached for paper and glue in unison. While roaring like a true power couple, they joined the fight.  
When they were getting for dinner later that day, Mallory crossed paths with Magnus. 'Hey! You promised you were going to come to paper-marcheé class!'  
'I had other stuff to deal with, Mallory.' She gave him a good look. Magnus looked haunted, as if something could jump out to kill him all the time. 'Also, if you see a big, gray cat somewhere, don't hesitate to throw it out the window. It might leave me alone if we show it who's boss.'


	24. Return Of The Squirt Gun Fight

'So. Here we go again,' Alex said, while shoving a sixth squirt gun into one of her pockets.  
'Where did you even get that jacket?' Magnus asked, while looking at Alex' new fashion statement: A jacket with about forty pockets. She shrugged.  
'I asked Blitz to make me something especially for our second squirt gun prank,' she explained. She stood up and took a lap around her room, trying to see if there was another squirt gun hidden somewhere.  
Magnus stuffed a second squirt gun in a pocket that already had one in it. 'Should we check on Mallory and Halfborn?'  
'Why? They can fend for themselves!'  
'I mean that we go and check that they do not fend for themselves a little too good. We said we would only use squirt guns for our prank, but I feel like they might pull out the super soakers.'  
'We'll keep an eye on them,' Alex answered. 'I feel like there are no more squirt guns hidden around this place.'  
'Only you would know.'  
'That is the fun part - I don't! I might get here for a small break later today and then there might be another squirt gun somewhere. Now let us go find the others.'  
T.J., Piper, Mallory and Halfborn were already waiting in the hallway, with as many squirt guns as they could carry. They did not waste any niceties. 'Where do we start?' Mallory had a huge grin on her face.  
'I say we start in teams of two,' Alex suggested. 'Me and Mallory, Magnus and Halfborn and Piper and T.J. What do you say?'  
'But I want...'  
'Yes, great idea!' Piper and T.J. said in unison, immediately rendering whatever Mallory was about to say useless. The son of Tyr and Daughter of Aphrodite ran off, towards the elevator. Alex hooked her arm through the Mallory's and pulled her along, right behind Piper and T.J.  
Halfborn grunted. 'Let's go, then.'  
'I have a goal,' Magnus stated while the elevator closed and they waited for the next one. Halfborn sighed deeply. 'And what might that goal be?'  
'You know those kittens that Freya brought us a little while ago and that have been terrorising us since they broke free?'  
'I wholeheartedly agree. Bonus Points if you hit Mittens.'  
'Double bonus points if you hit Mittens.'  
'Tripple, quadruple, and whatever comes after that.' The elevator dinged. The other four were gone - now it was their turn. 'Let's start on the cats' floor,' Magnus suggested. Halfborn gave him a nod. 'That sounds like a plan.

Piper and T.J. tried to get to the Russian class to the death, via a special, sneaky way. 'I hope you know where you are going,' Piper said while putting a squirtgun straight.  
'I have been living here for a few centuries. I know how it works.'  
Piper shrugged. 'I feel like you would need a few eons.'  
'Than why don't you ask Heimdall for a map with all the secret routes?' T.J. asked back.  
'You know what? That is a good idea actually.' Piper made a mental note to go and do that the next time she had to bring Heimdall food. For now, her focus was somewhere else.  
They reached the door and pushed it open with a loud roar. Without thinking about it, they aimed their squirt guns and shot. Of course, a measly beam of water came out of the small, dollar store weapons, but a few people still got hit. They all roared in fear as if a monster had appeared in front of them.  
T.J. and Piper began to get the feeling that maybe they did not go to the Russian class after all when they heard someone gasp 'our sign!' It did not sound like something that people in a language class yelled. It was then that they took a proper look around. Everywhere in the room where people with signs in their hands, with slogans like 'Safe our lives' and 'don't kill the lungs of the earth.' This really, really wasn't the Russian class. This was the protesting to the death.  
'You two are getting in the way of justice!' someone yelled. Piper and T.J. did not feel like explaining themselves. Instead, they turned around and ran away as fast as they could, while an angry group of people armed with heavy signs followed behind them.  
Alex and Mallory had more success with targeting the musical to the death group. They hid behind a piece of decor and sprayed the actors with water whenever they got to close. It took them fifteen minutes to find out that there were people pranking them and that the water was not part of the play. When someone pointed at them, Alex and Mallory got out, giggling like school girls.  
While they were getting out of the theater room, they came across Magnus and Halfborn. Magnus had a rip in his pants and Halfborn had a scratch on his cheek. 'What have you done?'  
'Did you see a group of kittens, by any chance?' Magnus asked, sounding agitated.  
'No, we have not seen them. But I thought we were here to target people, not kittens,' Alex mentioned. Magnus shrugged. 'Priorities, Alex.'  
'How did you even survive them scratching you?' Mallory wondered.  
'Those weren't the poison kittens,' Halfborn explained. 'That was Mittens, who is after us as well. Spray them if you find them, for the team.' They disappeared down a small corridor, leaving Alex and Mallory.  
'Shall we go to a random floor?' Alex suggested.  
'Great idea,' Mallory answered.  
Piper and T.J. had gotten the same idea. They were not sure whether they had escaped the mob of protesters, but at the moment they were in one of the elevators, going at a random, high floor. When the elevator finally opened, after about fifteen minutes of playing 'I spy,' to a floor with a lot of artwork hanging on the walls. Piper sneaked out of the elevator and rung a random doorbell. She held her squirtgun ready.  
As soon as the door opened, she fired. The person on the other side yelped.  
'Blegh! Even more water? I thought...' The voice fell silent. Piper locked eyes with them. It was one of the protestors.  
'You again!' What have we done to you? Are you one of those anti-protestors?'  
Piper gritted her teeth. 'No. This is just really bad pranking luck,' she said, while turning around and running away, quickly followed by T.J. They got into the elevator, but the protestor dived right after them and got in as well. The elevator began to go down before they could push her out again.  
She took a deep breath. 'Alright. So this is a prank to you?'  
'Well... that was the idea. With only squirt guns, you know, super soakers are against the rules.'  
'And you thought there would be no-one willing the participate in this prank?'  
'It is our prank and only a minute ago you were angry at us for it!' Piper yelled back. The protestor shrugged. 'And now I want to participate. In our protesting group there is this guy, you know, and he keeps stealing other peoples signs. I think he would deserve a water treatment.' She slammed a seemingly random button. When the elevator stopped, she got out, leaving T.J. and Piper to go down again.  
'Over there! Over there!' Magnus hugged the wall, but did not let the kittens go out of sight. Halfborn followed his movements. 'We can hit it,' Magnus whispered. One of the kittens twitched with its ears, but they stayed where they were.  
With a loud battle cry, Magnus jumped around the corner and sprayed one of the cats with a measly stream of squirt-gun water. The cat gave a weak mew, before shaking it's little head and giving a very deep and rough mew, which was terrifying.  
Halfborn was already running down the hallway. Magnus followed as quickly as his legs could carry him.  
'Mission accomplished!' He yelled to Halfborn, while they booked it down the corridor and towards the elevator, followed by a herd of creepily mewing kittens and one creepily meowing Mittens. Magnus rammed the elevator button. The doors opened, but when he tried to get inside, he was met with a big beam of water. 'Hey! Hey! That is against the rules! Mallory! Mall...'  
He stopped when he noticed the person talking to him was not Mallory.  
'Who are...'  
'I am a protestor, I was harassed twice and I decided to join in. I do not have to play by your rules.' The elevator doors closed as she went to the next floor Magnus and Halfborn turned around to view the homicidal cats behind them. They knew it was two late. Humans, Cats: 1-3(00).  
Mallory and Alex were still going strong, sniping people left and right (On very embarrassing places - use your fantasy for that one!), but T.J. and Piper began to get a little bored. Other protestors had joined in and were now using their super soakers to make other people wet, which honestly just kind of took the fun out of the whole ordeal. Instead, they decided to go provide catering to Heimdal, as well as asking him about the secret hallways. When they did, he pulled out a map with a huge grin. 'I thought you'd never ask!'


	25. Death To The Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What? But they are already dead.

'I wonder what we are going to do,' Alex said, while stretching.   
Magnus did not answer. He had absolutely no idea what 'death to the death' meant or what they would be doing. T.J. shrugged. 'I mean, maybe it is a fancy name for a regular brawl? Or a funeral?'  
'But we are all already dead. Who would we be holding a funeral for?'   
'I don't know, someone's dog?'  
'Could be.'

When they reached the room, it did, in fact, look like a funeral home. In the front stood a large casket, adorned with flowers. There were a bunch of chairs set throughout the rest of the room. In the corner was a small piano.   
Magnus, Alex and T.J. sat down on the fifth row. There were already some other people seated. Some of them had huge grins on their faces, like they knew exactly what was going to happen. Some others looked either scared, expectant or expressionless.   
'How late does... whatever it is going to be start?' Alex asked.  
T.J. looked at his watch. 'They said four P.M.'  
Alex pulled his arm towards him. 'It is five past four P.M. now!'   
Magnus looked at T.J.'s watch himself. 'So regular Hotel Valhalla lateness. Let's just wait...'  
They did not need to wait any longer than half of that sentence. First, the lights went out, except for a spotlight set onto the casket. A dude jumped up from behind it, with a microphone in his hand. 'Good morning, folks!' He jumped onto the casket and flipped his legs over each other.   
'Today we are here for my dear friend Jordan.' A second guy jumped up and stepped in front of the casket. He put a hand on it. 'Hello, my name is Jordan and some of you probably know me, because I have been here for about three years. Three years ago, I left a few of my dear friends behind in Midgard to join the fighting forces. But a few days ago, I was delighted to find out that my best pal Andrew arrived in hotel Valhalla after saving people from a burning building.'   
Around the room, a few gasps could be heard. Alex, Magnus and T.J. were all dead silent. Jordan coughed and continued: 'Because of this, we wanted to throw him a funeral. That is why you are all gathered here today. Mitchell?'  
Another guy walked over to the piano in the corner. He began to play a sad tune.   
'My friend Andrew was a wonderful person. Always ready to help people and absolutely full of life. I know he always wanted the most: study at an Ivy league college, find the perfect person to spend his days with, get the best job he could possibly get. And he deserved it all and more.'  
The sad music continued. 'Once, Andrew bought me donuts in the pouring rain when I was sad. He brought a girl that had never been nice to us soup when she was ill. When his favorite football team won, he only smeared it in our faces for a day or so.' Jordan fell silently for some time, until the sad music suddenly became a lot more upbeat.   
'And that is why it is so awesome that he can join us all today!' The first guy slid down the casket and flipped it open. The guy inside it sat up and waved at the crowd. 'May I introduce to you all: Our friend Andrew!'  
Andrew slung his legs over the side of the casket. Everyone in the room burst into applause. Andrew made a few bows. 'Thank you, thank you!' He took the microphone out of Jordan's hand, while climbing out of the casket.  
'You all must know that I am absolutely delighted to be here!' he waved his hands around. 'I have already been welcomed on my own floor and I hope you all will welcome me in the true hotel Valhalla fashion as well.'  
Alex laid a hand around his garotte. 'I would not hesitate to show him,' He said with a wide grin. Magnus and T.J. snickered.   
Andrew suddenly pulled out a sword half the size of his body. 'But first, let me introduce myself in the true Valhallan way!'   
Oh, it was on. A few people from the first row who were probably in on the spectacle jumped up from their seats and pulled out their own weapons. Soon, others joined in.   
Magnus pulled out Jack, who began to sing a surprisingly cheery tune. 'I am all for wishing the new guy a pleasant stay here in hotel Valhalla!' he singsonged, while Magnus targeted one of the guys in the front.   
'I know you do, Jack,' was his answer.  
Alex went straight for the big fish: Andrew himself. Yet, it was abundantly clear that he was no newby when it came to handling swords. With immense precision, he managed to slay someone in front of him. Alex took a step back. He should handle this as safely as possible.   
He slowly began to sneak up on Andrew, who was preoccupied with slaying someone else. In the meantime, the guy behind the piano had begun to play a very dramatic tune, that got wilder and wilder as the battle began to gain more momentum.  
With a dramatic swing of her garotte, Alex managed to end Andrew. He noticed too late that the music had stopped playing. Before he could run away, someone stabbed Alex in the back. The pianoman grinned and ducked behind the casket, to avoid a swing from Jack, who had flown up to him after noticing Alex’ defeat. Magnus followed soon after With a tiny knife, Mitchell pinched up a few times, until he managed to hit Magnus in his arm. He did not like that and jumped over the casket as well, which did not go as planned - he tripped over it and fell flat on his face. The piano man may have been able to get at him that way, but Magnus did not go out alone - with his casket stunt, he managed to wipe out quite a few other people with him, including T.J.   
Eventually, only the funeral set up remained. It was later discovered by a very confused crochet group, but they did not ask any questions and just sat down in the mess. They knew better.


	26. Cleaning To The Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Einhirjar make quite a mess, which is all nice and dandy, until they have to clean it up.

'Alright residents, we all know that one of the greatest strengths of the Einherjar is making a mess.' The hotel manager coughed and gave everyone in the room a stern look. 'But today, we must work on the opposite skill: cleaning.' His comment was met with a wave of shocked gasps. 'I know, this will be a very trying activity for a lot of you. But I am certain you all can do it. The valkyrie have put cleaning supplies on every single floor and in every single common area. Now' - he clapped in his hands - 'run and don't come back until every single inch of this place is so clean I can see my reflection in it.'  
'How many people do you think will drink bleach so that they die and do not have to engage in cleaning activities any longer?' Mallory asked her floormates. Magnus took a deep breath. He kind of did not want to think about that. Halfborn, on the other hand, grinned. 'Oh, at least a quarter of us will die because of an, airquotes, 'accident.' At least one-third will die because of disagreements and actual accidents and the rest might survive until lunch time.'  
T.J. grinned uncomfortably. 'Shall we start before that happens? Maybe there are some favors for the people who actually manage to clean something before the inevitable.'  
Alex nodded. 'At least it is something to do. Let's begin in one of the classrooms, those sound like they are not all that difficult to clean up.'  
'Everything is fine with me as long as we are not cleaning up showers,' Magnus chimed in.  
Mallory put her finger onto his lips. 'Don't. Do not. You shall not give the norns ideas,' she whispered. Magnus gave a little nod. 'Yeah, yeah.'  
They acted as calmly as they could while they were walking out of the room. But as soon as they were out, they ran, nay, sprinted towards one of the classrooms before someone else got there first.  
They were in luck, this time. After three classrooms that were already taken care of, they found an empty one. The cleaning supplies were already in the middle of the room. With a deep sigh, T.J. picked up a broom. He threw it at Mallory. 'Here you go.'  
She almost dropped it back onto the floor, but instead she groaned and began to sweep.  
Magnus picked up a bottle of window cleaner. For some reason, it looked like red kool-aid. Maybe it was red kool-aid and that was just what they cleaned the windows with in Hotel Valhalla. Anyway, he sprayed some onto the windows.  
He let out a little shreak when the window burst into tiny pieces before his eyes. He ran to the other end of the room. 'What kind of stuff is this?'  
Alex looked out the window from a (probably) safe distance. 'They are shooting at us from another window.'  
'Get back at them!' Mallory held her broom above her head.  
'We have no guns, Mallory.'  
Mallory threw the broom down. She ran out of the room before anybody could hold her back.  
Magnus threw down the window cleaner. 'At least we won't need this anymore,' he said with a sigh.  
As slowly as possible, so that the manager had no excuse to send them to the bathrooms, they cleaned the room. Mallory helped indirectly, by running in with a smoke gun and walking a trial of mud through the room.  
'Where does the mud come from?!' T.J. Exclaimed.  
'This ain't no ordinary smoke gun,' Mallory answered, before firing out the window at what the others hoped were the people who had fired at them.  
When the room was almost ready, they heard someone running towards the room. The hotel manager threw open the door. 'And, how is everything going around here?'  
Alex clenched the rag in her hand. 'Good, but we definitely need a lot more...'  
'What happened to the window!?'  
They all slowly turned towards the window.  
'Some jerkheads from another classroom shot it,' Magnus explained.  
'Sure. That's is why you have a smoke gun laying around.'  
'We needed to get back at them!' Mallory sputtered before thinking about the implications of saying that.  
For a few seconds, the manager let her think of what she just said. Mallory swallowed.  
'You know, we still need a few people in the public bathrooms,' he began. Magnus looked at the ground.  
'How interesting,' Halfborn mused. The manager pointed at the door.  
'Go.'  
There was no getting out of it. In a row, like they were sent to prison, they walked out of the classroom, towards their doom.  
Well, most of them. Halfway through the door, Halfborn made a u-turn and jumped out the window. 'See you at dinnerrrr,' they heard him yell. Magnus looked over his shoulder. Hm. Maybe a lost afternoon was worth it if he had to clean otherwise, but now it was too late.  
The manager followed them, to make sure they really went to the bathrooms. When they entered, Magnus had to hold his breath. The stench was absolutely terrible. No wonder - it probably had not been cleaned for years. All the gross things people did in here, including cleaning their pets, ritual sacrifices and making out, left their marks. The lucky thing was that the showers were only very dimly lit, so at least they did not need to see all the dirt.  
The manager gave each of them a cleaning rag that was ridiculously small. In the middle of the bathroom already stood a bucket with clean water and soap. 'Good luck.' with a turn of his heels, the manager left the bathroom.  
'Alrighty then...' Alex gave the bucket a really light kick. 'If we work quick, we won't miss dinner.'  
'That's very hopeful.'  
'I never said I was hopeful.'  
Magnus sighed, dipped the rag into a bucket and walked towards one of the toilet stalls.  
He began to wipe the walls with is. He had no idea what the stuff was that came of the walls, but it was dark, gooey and gross.  
His suffering did not last long. He cleaned out the rag and got back to the stall. His only thanks was that the door slammed shut, the words 'use your own bathroom' appeared on the walls and a laser gun shot him down.  
Alex looked at the exploding stall. 'I'll save a piece of cherry pie if you don't return in time,' she yelled, knowing Magnus would not hear it. T.J. stopped dead in his tracks.  
'Why would we even have a stall that explodes if you want to use it?'  
'I don't know,' Alex said with a sigh. 'I swear, one of these showers probably has mud coming out of it. Toxic mud.'  
T.J. sniffed. That truly sounded plausible. 'We need to make sure we do not accidently activate the showers,' he proposed.  
At that moment, they heard the sound of a shower behind them. Alex and T.J. turned around and saw that Mallory was using the water out of the showers to mop all the dirt on the floor to the middle of the room. It was a good idea, granted that it was clear that at least one of the showers was boobytrapped.  
'Mallory! Stop! We don't know what can come out of those showers!' Alex hissed. Mallory shrugged. 'I am willing to take the risk.'  
'What if mud comes out? What if that is part of the reason it is so gross everywhere!?'  
'If one of these showers had mud coming out of it, don't you think there would be a lot of dirt laying at the bottom?'  
'It's darker than space out here,' T.J. muttered. 'We are not able to see it.' Mallory looked at them for a moment, which they could hardly see, before she walked to the next shower. She turned it on and both Alex and T.J. cringed. Luckily, nothing but water came out of the showerhead.  
Even though everything seemed to be going fine, Alex and T.J. could not help but make a little jump every single time one of the showers went on. Yet, eventually, Alex began to feel a little uncomfortable.  
'Are you two also feeling so... light in your heads?' she inquired. T.J. and Mallory looked over at Alex, who was leaning on her broom.  
'I mean... not really,' Mallory answered. Alex coughed.  
'Al, I think the chemicals are getting to you,' T.J. threw the broom onto the floor. When he walked over to Alex, his feet made a gross, sticky sound, which did not make her feel any better.  
'Chemicals? I don't know if there are many chemicals here, I thought it was all eh... natural mud...'  
'You never know what these people did, maybe they had whole chemistry classes in the showers!'  
Alex shrugged. Could be. She started to see little black spots flying around, and that was not because of the dark room. 'I think... I need... To sit down... for some time.' She looked at the floor below her. Through the darkness, she could see the mud. No. Never. She'd rather die.  
Which is what she did. A few minutes after she began to feel unwell, she fell to the ground and disappeared. Now someone probably had to retrieve a slice of cherry pie for her.  
Mallory sighed deeply. 'Well, nothing to be done about it.' She looked up at the ceiling. 'Hey, aren't there showers up there as well?'  
'Mallory, I don't think...'  
But Mallory did not listen. Mallory was already running towards the button on the wall, which just asked to be pushed. Without really thinking it through, she punched the button, which set off all of the showers at once.  
It was bad enough that they got soaking wet. What made it worse is that after a few seconds, toxic mud began to ooze out of the showers. T.J. did not complain. He did not scream either. All he did was accept his fate as both he and Mallory died because of toxicity.  
The manager took a good look around. This was officially going on the list of things they would never do ever again. The hotel was grosser, more broken en worse off than ever before. He sighed deeply, very deeply. Maybe they just needed to spend some extra money on a good clean up crew.


	27. Modelling To The Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magnus and Mallory did not sign up for this, but oh boy is it a trip.

'Don't pay attention to Mina.'  
Immediately, Magnus turned his head around to look at Mina. He did not see anything unusual about her.   
'What's with Mina?'   
Mallory stroked her hair behind her ear. 'She is wearing a face mask to prove they can suffocate you. For the sake of science, she has not done any activities recently, because those could kill her as well. Yet, she started that experiment six weeks ago, and she is still alive. So I think she decided to join...' - Mallory raised her eyebrows and was quiet for some time - 'whatever we are going to do to speed up the process a little.' Mallory rolled her eyes. 'Actually, scratch what I said. Pay a lot of attention to Mina and make sure she doesn't die so that she has to make peace with the truth.'  
'Ah-ah.' Magnus fiddled with his thumbs. 'We are going to a class for fashion models, by the way.'  
Mallory pushed her hair the other way again. 'Oh. And why did we sign up for that?'  
'Can't remember. I don't think we signed ourselves up. Maybe it was Halfborn and Alex pulling a prank.'  
Both Mallory and Magnus nodded. That sounded very likely.  
They walked into the room. The teacher, a woman in shorts and a tank top, rolled her eyes when she saw Mina.  
'Welcome, folks. I am Zarina. We'll have a photoshoot today...'  
'Don't we first need to learn how to pose and stuff?' Someone from the back of the group yelled.  
'This world is live or die, missy!'   
'More like die or die,' Magnus whispered to Mallory. 'Will you die this way, or that way? Who knows!' Mallory hid her grin behind one hand.  
'I prefer that way, to be honest.'  
'Who's our first volunteer?' Zarina demanded. Nobody answered. The crowd stayed silent for a few minutes, before a girl in the front raised her hand. 'Come here.' The girl took a deep breath and walked up to the front.   
'Stand before the green screen.' The girl did as she was told. Before the green screen stood about twelve camera's and a few lamps.  
She shook her shoulders loose. 'Alright, do I...'  
She did not get any further. The camera's began to shoot and the lights were blinding. The people who were watching on held their hands in front of their eyes. The girl in front of the camera looked shocked in the small moment they could still see her, before they couldn't see her anymore because of all the flashes.  
After half a minute, they heard something drop to the ground. Zarina pushed a button, and the cameras stopped. A screen above the greenscreen went on and displayed a lot of photos, all next to each other, so that they were too small to be seen. The girl that had volunteered was laying on the floor, with her mouth a little open. She disappeared a few seconds later.   
'Hm. Guess I made them too hot after all,' Zarina mused. She walked to her computer, which was standing on the side, and began to click through the immense amount of photos that were made.   
She looked through them at an inhuman speed. 'Alright,' she told the rest of her group. 'These three are acceptable.' On the screen, she showed them three photos. On all three, the girl had a different expression. On the first one, she looked confused, on the second one she was trying to crack a smile and the last picture was one of genuine fear.   
'The first and last photos are the best ones,' Zarina announced. 'You can see the genuine expression in her eyes.'   
Now why would that be, Magnus thought to himself. He looked at Mallory, who was clearly thinking the same thing.  
Zarina clicked some buttons on her computer. 'Alright, it should be fine now. Who's next?' Nobody moved, until after a few minutes Mina made her way forward.   
Zarina pursed her lips. 'Alright then.' Mina slid in front of the cameras, with her mask still on. The woman turned the camera's on, and everyone held their breath.  
After a few seconds, the cameras stopped. Mina looked at the woman. 'Why are you doing...'  
Zarina displayed a single photo on the screen. 'Because I knew we would get to see this.' On the screen was a picture of Mina with a look of sheer determination and confidence in her eyes. 'You look like you own the world here. It was just what I was looking for. To the rest of you, this is what I want to see!'   
Mina turned away from the camera's and strided out of the room. 'I'll find a way!' She yelled over her shoulder.  
'You would think that by now she would know that those masks do not suffocate you,' Mallory whispered to Magnus.   
'I think this has become a challenge for how long we can keep her alive,' he whispered back.   
'Certainly. I think she has already broken the record.'  
'Anybody else who wants to give it a go?'  
This time, a young man was quite fast to walk to the camera's.   
'Give it your all,' the teacher told him. He answered with a confident nod.   
The cameras went on, and the guy began to pose. The onlookers could not fully see what was going on, but they could see it was intense. He jumped from one leg to the other, flailed his arms, probably did things with his face, went left, right, to the side, skip it, slide and a whole lot of other things.   
After about a minute, he made a jump that was so crazy that the green screen came crashing down with a loud bang. The guy screamed, after which nothing else was heard of him - because he had been crushed.   
Zarina cursed. 'Come on, a little professionalism!' She pulled the green screen up. 'These things aren't free! You can be dangerous all you want during sword fighting to the death, that is right after this class!'   
She strided over to her computer and smashed a few buttons. A picture of the guy appeared, and immediately some people fell to the floor and disappeared. The photo model might have been dead, but he had taken some peers with him with the most dangerous weapon of all - his good looks.  
Zarina groaned. 'I can't believe that just... I swear, sometimes this hotel...' she shook her head. 'All of the craziness aside, who wants to go next?' This time, a few people raised their hands. One of them was Mallory. The woman pointed at her. 'You. Try me.'   
Mallory curtsied, before taking her place in front of the camera. She took a deep breath. 'Go for it,' she said, even though the cameras had already begun flashing.   
Magnus closed his eyes for a moment in order to catch a break. In the next moment,Mallory screamed and fell to the floor. The cameras stopped flashing. 'Wha...'  
'Oh, I should have told you guys, I just didn't think anybody would be this stupid,' Zarina said, suddenly talking in a deep, dissappointed voice. 'That girl flipped off the camera and that made the inhabiting spirit angry,' she explained.  
'I'm sorry, the what?' A girl from the last row screamed.   
'This is the camera of someone who took a hike in the forest to get some pictures and never got out,' was the explanation. 'The spirit of that person still haunts it. He is a great cameraman, but also demands respect.'  
Magnus let it dawn on him for a while. A ghost camera. Sure, why not?  
'So, who's next?' Zarina put her hands on her hips. Nobody dared to move.   
After five minutes went by, Zarina sighed. 'I'll pick the next person if no one gets over here,' she told them sternly.   
The people Looked at each other. It was clear that they all collectively decided to let fate guide their way. After the minute was over, they turned towards Zarina like one, ready to let her pick the lucky vict... model.   
Zarina was visibly disappointed. 'Alright. Alright then. You!' She pointed straight at Magnus, who cursed himself for standing at the front. He put a step forward, but someone walked to the cameras before he could. Surprised, he took a step back again. Zarina gave the new model a weird look, but she did not complain.  
The new model took his place in front of the camera. They began flashing and the model was blinded. Yet, he did nothing about it. He just stood still and let it happen.  
His strategy seemed to work, for about half a minute, the time period in which all strategies in hotel Valhalla seem to work. After that, the cameras stopped. A soft voice chirped: 'well, how am I supposed to work with this!?' And the camera shot a warning shot at the model. Maybe it was supposed to miss him, maybe it was totally supposed to hit him right in the stomach so that he did not have to walk all the way back to his room.  
Zarina shrugged and pointed at Magnus. 'You were.' Magnus took a deep breath and stepped in front of the cameras. While they were going off, Magnus struck a few awkward poses. He laughed a little and moved his hands a few times.   
The cameras stopped. Magnus expected to be shot any second, but nothing happened. He turned towards Zarina, who shrugged. 'It's fine.' She showed a few pictures on the screen that weren't even that bad. 'You can leave if you want to.'  
That's the best idea I have heard all day, Magnus thought. He thanked her and walked out the door, not understanding in the slightest how he had survived that. But he did not complain. It was the way it was.


End file.
